But they believed they had a stronger case that the manual counts were flawed.

Democrats, arguing for trust in human judgment, are all for the manual counts.

The state's election law allows manual counts of ballots at the discretion of county election supervisors if a candidate makes a request.

The court in its rulings next week should make clear that manual counts, which are allowed under Florida law, are to be included in the final tally.

This chaotic, manual count in selected counties with no uniform standards cannot produce a fair and accurate count of the votes in Florida.

Reticulocyte counts can now be performed by many analysers, giving an alternative to time-consuming manual counts.

The court further directed the secretary to accept manual counts submitted prior to that deadline.

Additional manual counts of votes that have been counted and recounted will make the process less accurate, not more so.

Republican state legislators also filed a brief with the Florida court urging it to drop its earlier ruling and impose the original deadlines for the manual counts.

But in no uncertain language, he also said there really was no magic hour after which the manual counts may be ignored.