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Election recounts are ordered when the margin of victory is narrow or if there are suspicions of dishonesty. There are two types: mandatory and optional. Optional recounts can be requested by anyone, but the person requesting it must bear the cost. Recounts can be done by machine or by hand.
An election recount is typically ordered or requested when the margin of victory in an election is extremely narrow or when people believe the election may have been dishonest. As a general rule, only one recount per election will be allowed, although people could potentially challenge the results in a court of law to request another recount or further verification of the validity of the election. Recounts can become costly and time-consuming, and most governments prefer to avoid them if possible.
There are two types of recounts. In mandatory recounts, certain conditions surrounding the election mean that the government is required to conduct a review of the results. In these situations, the person who loses may choose to opt out of the recount, indicating that she accepts the results of the election as valid; losers of close elections are often prompted to waive their right to a recount. Mandatory recounts are usually ordered when the margin of victory is extremely close. For example, a jurisdiction might require a recount when the margin is less than 0.05% or when the difference is 2,000 votes or less.
In an optional recount, someone can specifically request that ballots be re-counted to verify election results. Someone who loses an election can request it, or a member of the general public can make a request. The person asking for the recount usually has to bear the costs, and in many cases, a deposit is required with a request, to confirm that the person is serious about questioning the election results.
People can ask for an optional recount if the margin of victory is very low or if they suspect that there have been voting irregularities. Irregularities can include things like voter intimidation, malfunctioning voting machines, lost ballot boxes, and so on. Some nations use neutral election observers to monitor elections for signs of such irregularities so they can be addressed as soon as they occur or are reported.
When a government recounts votes after an election, it has the option of doing so by machine or by hand. An automatic recount typically takes less than a day, as the ballots simply need to be fed through the scanning machines used to re-read the results. In the case of electronic voting, information at polling stations is again pulled from hard drives or any paper trail will be checked by the machine to confirm the results. In a manual or manual recount, ballots are personally reviewed in a process that can take weeks or even months.
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