Republican nominee David Schaffer has requested a hand recount in the Oklahoma House District 78 race. Initial returns show him losing by 34 votes to Democrat nominee Jeannie McDaniel -- only a couple of votes per precinct. There were ballot scanner problems in precinct 157 -- the ballots in that precinct were rerun through the machine on election night and produced an increase in votes for Schaffer.

The recount happens today in the Tulsa County Courthouse in Judge Tom Gillert's courtroom at 9:30 am.

The fact that we can have this recount and cope with a voting machine problem is an indication of the superiority of Oklahoma's approach to counting votes. We fall short in voter authentication, but there is a tangible, persistent record of those votes which are cast, unlike the touchscreen systems and the old-fashioned mechanical tallying systems which leave no records, at least none which can be verified by the voter and which are human-readable.