As you may well know, the Ohio voter identification law has been under challenge in Ohio, with U.S. Dist. Judge Algernon Marbley issuing a preliminary injunction as far as requiring voter identification for absentee ballots for about, oh, a day, and then it being reinstated by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Today was the hearing for a decision on what would be done with the law. The hearing was undertaken with the serious concern that if the law was thrown out, the 6th Circuit would reverse the decision and we would be right back where we started.

The good news is: A settlement has been reached!

The Supreme Court is back in session, and according to the Chicago Sun-Times, Rehnquist is so ailing that the court is trying to rule as quickly as possible on the issues before them, to avoid the problem of possible 4-4 ties before a new justice could be confirmed.

Assuming Rehnquist can't hang on for four more years, here are the most likely Bush picks for a replacement. The replacement could either be appointed directly as Chief Justice, or a current justice could be promoted to Chief Justice, making the new justice an associate justice.

Only tin-foil hat-wearers, according to an article by Anne Applebaum, printed in the Columbus Dispatch today.

Applebaum says worrying that an election might be stolen due to a total lack of recountable records is as crazy as thinking, for example, "The Bush administration knew in advance [about 9/11]," or "The Bush family is protecting the Saudis." To me, that happens to translate as "not very crazy at all," but that obviously isn't how Applebaum meant it.

She compares the electronic voting situation to the use of an ATM - many of us don't always get print records at the ATM of our transation, so why would we want print records of how we vote to exist somewhere? I'd counter that print records of our ATM transactions DO exist even if we don't get a receipt - if something looks fishy on a bank statement, we can do something about it. If something looks fishy in an all-electronic election, there's nothing to be done.

Reprinted below (The Dispatch requires obnoxious registration).