The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Eric:

Recounts can happen even when you can't count individual votes; they just don't count individual votes in that case. (Which is a problem, but it's a topic for another discussion.) A recount also involves double-checking the actual vote totals on each machine against what was reported, double-checking precinct totals against what was reported, and so on up the ladder. That's often done for the official count anyway, but it's certainly done for a recount. It would catch anything like this, because the number in this case wasn't reported by the actual voting machine.

The assorted authorities aren't really looking into it because this happens all the time. There are always errors in preliminary totals -- usually just that someone wrote down the wrong number -- which is why recounts always end up adjusting the total one way or another. But elections aren't certified until well after Election Day, so these things nearly always get corrected. And where they make a difference, they are always corrected, since any recount would catch this.

This isn't new with electronic voting; it's happened everywhere probably since the first election was held a few thousand years ago. And this one isn't even close to the largest erroneous vote swing. In this year's Pennsylvania Senate primary, for example, Arlen Specter briefly gained about 80,000 votes from one precinct due to a reporting error. That one was caught in the initial vote count on Election Day because everyone noticed right away.

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