What Happened in Ohio?

At 5pm Eastern on Election Day 2004, sportscaster Jim Lampley says Vegas sportsbooks were giving Kerry two-to-one odds of winning the election. He says there's no way they could've been that far off if all of the votes had been counted. He also asserts that exit polls varied by beyond-error margins in 10 states, something that hasn't happened since 1948 when modern exit polling began.

It would be easy enough to dismiss Lampley's sportsbook logic as inflammatory loser talk if not for all the reports of voting irregularities in Ohio. Christopher Hitchens' must-read story in the March issue of Vanity Fair discusses these irregularities in depth and makes it clear that electronic voting machines with unchecked secret codes could be manipulated by just a few insiders, and no one would be the wiser for it. Anyone interested in fair elections - which will include a losing Republican presidential candidate sooner or later - should view Hitchens' story with grave concern.

Something smells about what went down in Ohio and it ought to be investigated.