>If Gore/democrats really want to recount all the votes in Florida, he/democrats certainly don't need Bush's/republican's approval to recount evey county. Democrats can take it upon themselves to recount all the counties. Can't they? Or Am I missing something? If I am I'll be first to admit it and apologize.

I'm no expert either, but I believe this is the general scenario as to why:

1) There were 72 hours to request manual recounts, and a short time to get the counting done (it was thought to be one week at the time). Any requests after that would need to come from Harris or the State Supreme Court, but see next point:

2) The Dems knew of the time-window dilemma and the procedural mess involved in requesting and tallying recounts, so they naturally requested recounts only where they hoped to get some real pickups. Quite logical, even if a bit unseemly by the Dems. We can all see the difficulties in recounts in just a few counties, let alone 67.

But in retrospect, the Dems may wish they had requested the entire state recount right away, it would've been a better political position and a good gamble, I would agree...