Congress has requested more information from Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, and will hold hearings regarding alleged election irregularities in Ohio. The letter from the House Judiciary Committee is fifteen pages long but well worth reading and, in my opinion, somewhat chilling.

According to this report from the Ohio Plain Dealer, in the course of working their way through the process of certifying the election, Ohio officials have found several thousand previously uncounted votes for Senator John Kerry.

Regardless of the outcome in Ohio and other states where serious questions have arisen, it’s already obvious we have a problem with ballot counting and election procedures in this country.

Our leaders have been quick to point fingers at the Ukraine’s election irregularities, but are strangely silent, as is much of the news media, in regard to our own.

If Americans can’t trust that elections will be handled truthfully and accurately, and that problems will be made public, then some level of reform is called for. I believe in autonomy of the states, but when national leadership hangs in the balance perhaps we need better national standards in place that all states, counties, and precincts are expected to meet in national elections, so when we’re told a candidate has won, we can rest assured all votes have been properly taken into account, and that all who wanted to vote were able to. Otherwise, the little stickers we’re given at the polls might as well say, “I voted, but did they count it?”