Florida law explicitly allows and seems to even require manual counts of machine rejected ballots as part of the standard canvassing procedure.

101.5614 (5) Explains that machine recounts are not the only way to count votes, contradicting the Bush camps claim that a machine recount is all that Florida law requires and that a machine recount should suffice.  In other words, Florida law allows for the counting of votes not counted by machines while returns are being canvassed.  Only 10 counties followed these statutory instructions when recounting their ballots.  Here is the relevant wording contained in the statute:

"If any paper ballot is damaged or defective so that it cannot be counted properly by the automatic tabulating equipment, the ballot shall be counted manually at  the counting center by the canvassing board...No vote shall be declared invalid or void if there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter as determined by the canvassing board."

Under this Section of Florida law (titled Canvassing of Returns), the counting of votes includes running the ballots through the counting machines and manual inspections of any ballots not read by the machine to determine if a vote can be determined.  In other words, a full count under Florida law seems to require both a machine count and manual counts of any ballots not read by machine on which a clear indication of voter intent can be determined by the canvassing boards.