71.   Or when a close race is in a venue small enough the hand count can be conducted easily.

72.   One worker, taking a break from the hand count, had a more succinct response to Republicans who saw in the discarded chads a sinister force at work.

73.   Palm Beach is one of four Florida counties seeking hand counts of ballots.

74.   Republicans continue to lambaste the hand counts in three South Florida counties, calling them an effort by Vice President Al Gore to steal the election.

75.   Republicans argue that the hand counts have been a disaster, subject to human error and partisan mischief.

76.   Republican leaders responded angrily and produced sworn statements from Republican leaders and election officials in two of those counties, stating that there had been no hand counts there.

77.   Republicans pressed their argument that selective hand counts would be a violation of the constitutional guarantee to equal protection of the law.

78.   Sauls then recused himself from the case late Friday and the job of supervising the statewide hand count of ballots passed to Lewis.

79.   So far, however, the hand counts have not yield many new votes for Gore.

80.   Supervisor of Elections Jane Carroll, a Republican, voted against the hand count.