In a safe at the Mecklenburg Board of Elections in Charlotte, NC, sits an amazing repository of information -- the actual paper tapes produced by the iVotronic machines (the same as used in Florida) used in the closest Congressional election in the country -- NC-08.
Some people think there was a recount of all of those tapes. That isn't what happened.
The international media has turned its attention on the North Carolina case.
When we had our recount here in North Carolina, in the counties that used automatic voting machines, only a sample precinct was counted.
The election board would NOT let observers see the actual tapes (citing voter privacy), and in fact counted a tape several times before the count agreed with the machine count.
There was nothing that could be done within the rules of the election system, however [Hey, we are Democrats -- we are the good guys -- and even if we control the process, we are going to play by the rules]. North Carolina is a State, though, where Democrats control the State Legislature, and we have an evolving set of election standards -- a group of very courageous people did a lot to change the system in just this last cycle.
However, it seems to me that in the case of significant undervotes, an investigation should take place -- and in this case, unlike Florida, that investigation should take place. Further, the law ought to provide for a different method of checking statistically significant undervotes.
On ActBlue, the Florida race got 129K -- versus 6K for the closer (and verifiable) Kissell race. Larry is running again -- and those tapes are still in that vault. Let's do everything we can to make sure the rules are in place to make sure the recount will take place in accord with due process.