Fraud need not be the motivator or the conclusion.
A Democracy that refuses to validate/audit the votes, is a Democracy in peril.
1. Recounts should be done to validate the truth, which is supposed to be the soul of Democracy. The primary purpose of a recount(s) should not be expectation of overturning election results, but confirmation of the integrity of the voting process and installation of confidence in the American people and the international community.
2. Validation is imperative when you have 286 documented instances of voting "machine malfunction" which are clustering in FL, OH, NC. The system is suspect jeopardizing confidence in the results. The nature of those dysfunctions (random errors and/or fraud) is independent to the need for inquest.
http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?offset=40&catid=&showall=&sort=date3. Given #2 and the exit poll results, the degree of confidence in the Bush plurality is seriously questioned. Using the assumption of a 4 million plurality not to audit the votes is to stand on a tinfoil platform.
4. Electronic voting system companies should be put under the microscope. This is underscored by the recent $2.6 million dollar award to the State of California against Diebold for electoral chaos resulting from substandard voting machinery. There should also be an interrogation of the Diebold and ES & S software systems and an investigation of possible direct corporate links to specific political parties.
5. Exit polls gave John Kerry a statistical probability of victory of 99.9982%. Statisticians assert the likelihood of the final tallies flipping to Mr. Bush as 1: 250,000,000 or 1:187,000,000 respectively, depending upon the number of states in the calculation. Voting is supposed to be sacred in a Democracy. Therefore, we must err on the side of caution and investigate rather than ignore.
6. Both Ohio and Florida recently removed documentation of large over votes from their respective web pages. In the case of Florida, this was more than 225,000 votes. Even if there are legitimate reasons, the promiscuous manipulation of numbers on this scale should be investigated.
7. Recounts are also a question of honor. Every politician who promised the people that "all the votes would be counted" needs to step forward and fulfill that promise.
8. There is a growing conviction that any voting method not leaving a paper trail is a felony on Democracy and must be eradicated forever from the political landscape. Legislation has been languishing in Congress. Recounting the votes in even 2 or 3 states will focus the national spotlight on the evils and errors of electronic voting systems and give great impetus to efforts to abolish this travesty.