Out of 1.94 million votes cast in November, Republican Bob McDonnell won Virginia'a Attorney General race by 323 votes. He was certified the winner, but could still end up losing it in a recount.

Democrat Creigh Deeds requested the statewide recount. Even though I voted for Deeds, I would have urged him to concede (but then I'm not the one facing unemployment). But the recount in Virginia should be much more orderly than in other states.

"We are not going to make up rules about how to count votes after the election," said Camille LaCognata, voting equipment manager for the State Board of Elections, which has been overrun with calls from both camps seeking clarification of the rules.

"You're not going to see Democrats seeing more votes for Democrats and Republicans seeing more votes for Republicans. It's already been rewritten up in our policies and procedures..."

Lawyers for both campaigns will sit before a judge today to iron out just how the recount will be structured. Will every vote be counted, or will they just retally the totals from each precinct?

Individual ballots cannot be recounted on touch-screen and lever machines, but the results can be double-checked from printouts. It will be up to the recount judges to decide whether to rerun ballots through the optical scanners and punch-card machines, or just to check results on the tabulators.

Both men were good candidates. Just so long as we don't see poll workers holding cards up to the light trying to devine the intent of the voter, I don't really care who wins.