Ohio journalists Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman have been charging that the way voting was conducted in their state in the 2004 presidential election was suspicious almost from the moment George W. Bush was declared winner. Winning Ohio gave Mr. Bush his second term in office.

Now a report from the Ohio Secretary of State agrees that Ohio’s ballots could easily have been manipulated.

Messrs. Fitrakis and Wasserman point out that Mr. Bush’s win over John Kerry reversed the prediction made by exit polls. In the days following the election, most mainstream media commentators blamed the discrepancy on the exit polls. Now it seems there may have been another cause.

Unfortunately, we’ll never know for sure, because the records of that election were destroyed – in violation of federal law – in 56 of Ohio’s 88 counties.