This is a little factoid that may seem too geeky to comprehend for many people, but here goes.
Every website on the Internet referes to one or more IP addresses. These addresses are unique (with a few unimportant exceptions) on the Internet. We can use these IP addreses to identify people on the Internet using a database of people that the IP addresses have been assigned to (usually ISPs or companies).
On election eve last year in 2004 the State of Ohio’s election website had a change of IP address. This in and of itself is not a surprise. The site was likely going to get bombarded with requests in the next few days, so you want to make sure the servers can handle it. However the IP address that it redirected to was owned by a company called Smartech. It is interesting to look at the other websites that Smartech hosts or hosted. Here is a representative sample:
georgebush.com
gop.com
johnmccain.com
newt.org
republicanvictoryteam.org
So to sum up, the OH election website was transferred to the Republican party on election day. Does anyone else find this bizarre and/or evil?