While close races do not automatically trigger recounts, as in Florida, judges in New Jersey will often grant a candidate's request for one.
With the votes still being counted, the question was whether the result would fall within the margin that automatically requires a recount.
Mr. Hoisington won by only 265 votes out of 29,421 cast, a margin so small that it will automatically trigger a recount.
The state undertook a recount automatically because under the law, a recount is required if a candidate is elected by less than one-half of 1percentt of the total vote.
The state automatically conducts a recount when the margin of victory is within one fifth of one percent, which is between 2,500 and 3,000 votes, according to Democratic officials.
And what Mr. Boies is suggesting is that every one of those counties, simply because they had a punch-card system, must automatically do a manual recount.
Under Florida law, a recount is automatically undertaken when an election is decided by less than one-half of one percent of the total vote.
A recount is automatically triggered when there are fewer than 100 votes separating two candidates after all preferences have been distributed.
Mr. Rossi's 261-vote victory last week, coming two weeks after Election Day and delayed by the counting of hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots, automatically brought a machine recount under Washington's election laws.
Even the closest of elections -- President Chen defeated the Nationalist candidate, Lien Chan, in the initial count on Saturday by just two-tenths of one percent -- do not automatically qualify for a recount.
