My sense of humor must be out of touch with the national mood. A few days ago, I thought it was quite funny when Greg Palast reported that Kerry actually won the election. Now I see that this wacky idea spread; first to the point where Peter Jennings gave it serious attention on the national news, and now it appears there's going to be an official recount. More here.

Aside from the Libertarian Party's Badnarik and Green Party's Cobb, several 527s have already leaped into the fray, including http://www.ballotintegrity.org/, http://www.helpamericarecount.org/, and http://blackboxvoting.org/.

The following is from a statement from Dan Trevas, Ohio Democratic Party Communications Director:

After the Unofficial Results reported Nov. 2 - George Bush leads John Kerry by 136,483 votes.

Provisional ballots will be counted.

155,000 provisional ballots have been cast and not yet been counted.

County Boards of Elections have until Friday to verify the eligibility of those who cast a provisional vote. Counting will begin, Saturday, November 13. County Boards have until Dec. 1, 2004 to certify their vote totals and report them to the Secretary of State.

Two Democrats and two Republicans sit on each County Board of Elections.

Tabulations of the votes will be done in a bi-partisan manner. Only if there is a tie vote on the board does the decision go to the Secretary of State.

Overseas absentee ballots have not been counted.

Overseas Absentee ballots by civilians may have been received by County Boards of Elections by Nov. 2 that have not yet been counted. The Boards of Elections will count those votes.

Overseas absentee ballots by military have until, Friday, Nov. 12 to arrive and be counted by the Boards of Elections in the final total.

93,000 punch cards were cast, but a vote for president was not counted.

In the many years before 2002 2000 [sorry!], the punch card system brought no complaints that I ever heard about. I worked as a poll watcher in numerous elections in Berkeley (hardly a bastion of conservatism), and voided ballots were simply considered voided ballots. No one ever gave it a second thought.

In light of the pitfalls presented by electronic voting, paper balloting makes a lot of sense, but I still see no way to overcome the hopelessly stupid. (Glenn Reynolds, by the way, makes an excellent case for paper ballots.)

I doubt this recount mania will accomplish much, although I am sure it will help fuel the usual conspiracy theories.

UPDATE (11/13/04): Many of the election fraud claims are debunked here. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

MORE (11/15/04): Tom Maguire nails the New York Times' blaming of the blogosphere for spreading election fraud claims they've actually been debunking. (Via InstaPundit.) Killing two birds with one stone while pretending to be retarded is always an editorial challenge.