politics

Florida Recount: Bananna Republic Decides the Election!

Representatives from the Florida election committee have tried to quell concerns involving the apparent anarchy in the election last Tuesday. The Secretary of State of Florida has promised, "We're doing a very thorough recount. We've got octogenarians in the early stages of Alzheimer's, Haitian boat people, in-bred white swamp people from the Everglades, and Reaganite Cubans very carefully counting the vote to get us to the correct result."

James Baker, Bush's representative for the Florida recount, has serious misgivings about the fairness of the process of the hand recount in the primarily Democratic counties of Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. The Democratically-affiliated election officials of Palm Beach County have assured that they will make every effort to guarantee the fundamental fairness of the hand recount process. Already they have recounted 20,000-ballots, and Bush has gained 12 votes, and Gore has gained 34,000. Three thousand votes had to be thrown out because of coffee and food stains. Several hundred others were used to smoke reefer, which was donated courtesy of the Jamaican Democratic Coalition.

Gore is not sure how the final certifiable vote is going to turn out, but he has renamed his dog Chad. 'Chad' refers to a country in North Africa or the common first name of a white suburban kid, but apparently in election parlance, it has a specific meaning. That is, it refers to the part of the paper ballot that is perforated out and then discarded. In a hand recount, the human could detect a partial perforation of the chad, whereas the computer would not count the vote.

To demonstrate this point, a representative of the Palm Beach election committee took one of the ballots and showed it to the press.
"Here is an example of a ballot with a partial perforation in the chad. Now the computer wouldn't count this, but the human eye--"
Another member of the Palm Beach election committee interrupted him, "What are you doing? That's an example of a ballot without a perforation. I have the partially perforated ballot here."
"Well how did this mark get here?"
"Well you grab it from me a little roughly."

Nevertheless, the Palm Beach election committee has guaranteed the fairness of the process by allowing newspapers and news channels to set up cameras, overlooking the the hand recount. Public servants in the sleepy retirement community of Palm Beach are impartially and fairly counting each and every ballot.

Here's how the process works. A campaign worker, like for instance, the 79 -year-old Ruth Mendelbaum, holds up the ballot, the Democratic overseer - Mary O'Hagan or the Republican overseer - Tippi Fowler consider it at great length and then one or the other replies, 'Go Fish.' Then they draw another card out of the stack of ballots for the next round, while Ruth goes on about her oldest grandson who was just accepted into medical school. Suddenly Tippi becomes very cross because a younger election official jogs past them.

"The nerve of him, running in a pool area, he might hurt someone, the shame of it."

Ruth speaks in a pronounced voice: "We aren't in a pool area."

Tippi adjusts her hearing aid.

William Daley - the head of the Gore campaign - declared that the Republicans are just playing politics. The Democratic party is merely using the relevant Florida statute to get a permissible hand recount of four specific counties.

In defense of Daley and the Gore campaign, Florida does have a state statute for just this type of contingency. The statute reads as follows:

1.009986677774.9988004(b)C(I) - In the event that there are irregularities in the electronic counting of the ballots go to subsection (e) of 1.009986677774.9988004(b)C(I), the annotated version, and refer to footnote 4.

Footnote 4 read as follows: In the event a hand recount is requested refer to subsection (e) of 1.009986677774.9988004(b)C(I), chapter 6, verse 7.

It reads as follows: In the event of a hand recount the following procedure should be used:

1(a) The ballots should be counted one-by-one using an Arabic, and not Roman system of numerals.

1(b) The ballot should be held up to the left cataract and then to the right cataract, and if you can see light through the Chad, by Chad we're not referring to a country in North Africa, then you count that vote, but only if the light that comes through is strong enough, if magnified, to burn the edge of a leaf.

1(c) There can be no counting of ballots during the Florida- Florida State football game.

1(d) There can be no counting of ballots during the tail-gating for the Florida- Florida State football game.

1 (e) Notes to hand counters: If you're planning to recount more than ten votes, it is advisable to use a calculator or an abacus. If you are attempting to count ballot 25 through 30, note that is actually representative of six ballots not five. There is a controlling Florida Supreme Court decision holding thus.

1(f) Separate the ballots into two piles, one for the Republican and one for the Democrat. Put these two piles onto a large, oversized scale. If they even out, returned to 1(a) and repeat the process, and eventually it will tilt one way or the other.