I'm not back yet but I had to mention this. As you know, a big recount is underway in Minnesota where Norm Coleman's lawyers and Al Franken's attorneys are duking it out for a Senate seat. As it does too often in this country, it comes down to someone looking at ballots of questionable validity or intent and ruling which ones go to which guy and which ones don't count. This always makes people suspicious about "the count" even though recounts are under a lot more scrutiny than our usual tallying procedures. At least since Bush-Gore, a lot of folks seem to assume that if their guy loses a recount, it could only be because the election was stolen by the deliberate misreading of the ballots.
At the moment, a five-man election board is wading through the mass of challenges and arguable votes. I don't know which candidate will win. (Whichever one it is, he's going to win by a handful of votes, about as many as Ralph Nader receives nationwide.) But I'm very impressed with the fact that the board's deliberations are being live-streamed on the Internet. You can watch the hearing, see the ballots they're discussing and hear exactly why they give this one to Coleman, that one to Franken and the next three to the wastebasket. When they're not counting, you can view reruns.
I only had the time this morning to watch about twenty minutes but what I saw seemed mature and fair and most of all, transparent. The judges are making their decisions in full view of the public with the full knowledge that if (intentionally or not) they put a lot of votes in the wrong pile, they're being watched and recorded. I don't know if you or I will like the outcome but don't you like that they're doing this? I mean, could it get any more democratic than to let everyone watch?