dbrown: Try listening to more news than just a sound bite, and then maybe you will know what's going on. The ballots are being hand counted not by order of the
Democratic National Committee, but instead by
Florida state
law. Florida voting law requires a hand recount of ballots when the difference is less than .5%.
This is not a case of technophobia in the Democratic Party. Actually, the whole voting process is rather anachronistic, as we could easily computerize the whole damned system. However, there will still be good old fashioned human error in any system designed and run by humans.
I'm sorry, I was mistaken on one point: Florida voting law demands an machine recount when the difference is less than .5%. The Democrats requested a hand recount due to the nature of the ballots. The ballots in question are being hand recounted because the machines may have miscounted them due to something called a "hanging chad." A "chad" is a piece of paper that gets punched of the ballot to indicate a vote. Many weren't properly punched out, causing the machine to not properly count the vote.
How is it a waste of taxpayer money to accurately count their votes? I'm sure people would glady pay for the recount rather than have the wrong man get into office.