New Hampshire Primary Recount Begins

The recount of ballots from last week's New Hampshire Primary began today, as requested by Democrat Dennis Kucinich and Republican Albert Howard. The bi-partisan call for a recount came after candidates noticed various discrepancies in the final tally.

According to a report on the Boston-area television station WBZTv.com, New Hampshire's Secretary of State indicated his office is prepared for the recount to begin. The report indicated that Rep. Kucinich has submitted $27,000 to begin the process of hand counting ballots. The process can be stopped at any time, and remaining funds would be returned to the candidate. The estimate to re-count all of the Democratic ballots in the state is reported to be about $70,000. Howard, a Michigan resident who was one of the fringe candidates included on New Hampshire's Republican primary ballot, posted to his web site that the money to fund the recount had been secured and reported: "The recount is on!!" At about $0.24 per ballot, the estimate for the Republican recount on a state-wide basis is around $55,000. According to WBZTV.com, "Kucinich has asked that the re-count start with Manchester ballots and spread out from there to other Hillsborough County precincts." It is likely that Howard will also ask to tailor the recount to identified areas where discrepancies, if any, will most quickly be uncovered. It is probable that the entire state will NOT be recounted in either case, even though Kucinich's stated purpose is not to uncover large-scale counting errors, but to "make sure all the ballots...are counted." According to the report, counting began this morning at 9:30 a.m. As reported earlier, New Hampshire election officials are "confident" that the certified results are accurate.