It would be simple to write software that would count the first 3% of the votes cast correctly, then skew the remaining 97%.  In a recount like that in Ohio, everything would match during the hand recount of the first 3% of the votes.  Then the machines take over, according to Ohio law.

  Consider if you were hacking this election, setting things up back before Nov 2, and that in order to win the state, you would have to go after some of the counting machines that left paper trails (not the DRE, but the punch card machines.)  Would you not be aware of how your "fix" might be discovered during a recount?  Would you not put in the simple lines of code that would make everything look fine during the 3% hand count?  Of course you would.

  The only way to do a recount is to pick one of the counties with the most suspect statistics and hand count all the votes.  Anything else tells us nothing.  

Robert D. Klauber, PhD
Retired businessman, physicist