In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court™ of The USA! upheld a law that even first-year political science students agree will disenfranchise a variety of voters from the elderly to immigrants (the legal ones). The Supremes said it was cool for Indiana to require photo I.D. to participate in the electoral process in that state, which it most certainly is not. It is exponentially less cool than the least cool thing you can think of – even less cool than “More than Words” by Extreme.

The insanely-easy-to-understand and well-tested political science that they use to teach first year students how to use political science says that requiring a photo I.D. at a polling station will disenfranchise significant voter populations, and those that it disenfranchises will almost all be poor. Having grown tired of the metaphorical exclamation ‘bullshit’, I tried another couple to describe what that is. Indiana’s voter I.D. law is an eight-foot-deep lagoon of festering hog crap. It’s buckets of warm vomit… None seemed to describe as accurately the legislation as my initial inclination. Indiana’s voter I.D. law is indeed bullshit.

We dispatched the Votelessness arts and sciences department to research the legislation for us and they agreed with our assertion. Indiana’s voter I.D. law is bullshit, indeed.

When reached for comment, the rich people who made and like this law said, “Indiana’s desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important…” To which we at Votelessness responded, “Cool, so you’re going after Diebold, excuse me, Premier Elections Solutions and ES&S?” An aide then whispered in our ear that the fraud they were talking about was people voting more than once, using different names. Since there isn’t any evidence of anyone trying to commit that type of fraud, we didn’t really get it and continued, “Do you think you will indict Kenneth Blackwell?” Upon the second whispering, we understood what the aide was saying and exclaimed, “That’s bullshit”. We were asked to stop asking things.

Stop asking we did. Now all we’re saying is that it is bullshit that the Supreme Court™ of The USA! upheld such a bullshit piece of legislation as Indiana’s voter I.D. law There is no evidence that anyone has ever even attempted the type of fraud this law ostensibly prevents, but there is ample evidence that such bullshit legal restrictions do disenfranchise significant numbers of voters. Those voters are almost always poor.

BULLSHIT!

Hillary Clinton apologized to black voters for remarks made by Geraldine Ferarro while serving as a member of Clinton’s finance committee. Ms. Ferarro insinuated that Barack Obama would not have made it as far in the race for President if he were not black. Clinton made haste to apologize for the remarks which many (including her campaign advisors) viewed as culturally insensitive. No consideration was made for the fact that Ms. Ferarro’s remarks are absolutely true. But, true or not, those comments could have hurt someone’s feelings and there is no place for that in government.

The good numbers coming out of think tanks and research agencies alike indicate that this primary election is being influenced substantially by the participation of first-time and sporadic voters. If those voters get their feelings hurt, they may likely never participate in the empty façade of status-quo legitimation we call ‘democracy’ again. Senator Clinton and her advisors recognized that hurt feelings can lose primaries and made every effort to distance herself from Ms. Ferarro’s true-but-potentially-mildly-off-putting statements. Her strong-minded advisors composed her a strongly-worded response,

“I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn’t speak for the campaign, she doesn’t speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.”

Reasoned discussion of sensitive issues that could and do have a profound impact on America is no way to win an election. Hillary Clinton knows that, which is why she has repeatedly relied on empty and reductionist rhetoric. The truth hurts – feelings. Empty and reductionist rhetoric makes people feel warm and fuzzy, hopeful and it keeps them interested in voting. That is why Americans can look forward to endless quagmires of the stuff as candidates race each other to out-coddle their constituents

Ralph Nader is right. If the Democrats cannot win this one in a landslide, they should close down. Gosh, it sure is great to have old Ralph back in the race. His curmudgeonly-old-crank demeanor and rumpled, ill-fitting suits will be a welcome compliment to Hillary’s ridiculous smile and point routine and custom-tailored power-suits. Same thing for Obama’s dramatic earnestness and McCain’s tough-but-fair granddad thing.

Huck(abee) has been my favorite presidential candidate since Kucinich and Tancredo dropped out, mostly because of the cartoonishness. His suits are off-the-rack. They fit him very well, but not because he has had them made or even altered. They fit him because he has the all-American body type that off-the-rack suits are made for. He doesn’t believe in evolution and he is prone to strip down to shirtsleeves, strap on an electric bass and rip off Boston’s “More than a Feeling”, despite the fact that the band has asked him to stop using their song to promote an agenda that they find abhorrent. He honestly believes that we should have God rewrite the constitution and his wife is an ace with a shotgun. The two of them have a lake in Hope, Arkansas named after them. His middle name is Dale. He is proud of the fact that he believes the world is only 6000 years old, and he wants to be president. That would be freekin’ hilarious.

That’s why I was for Huck.

Now that Nader’s in, I have to change allegiances. He’s much funnier than Huck. Especially now that he has begun to turn into Columbo. Actually, he’s more like a muppet version of Columbo. His stringless marionette stature must be a clothier’s worst nightmare, since it is impossible even to custom-make clothes that fit it.

Many of history’s most hilarious individuals were called Ralph. There’s Malph, Wiggum, Waldo Emerson… and now Nader. Democrats still call him a spoiler, claiming that he gave Florida to Bush. They are just jealous because they aren’t all that funny. Nader, on the other hand, is milk-through-the-nose funny. Plus, he didn’t spoil anything. Florida was given to Bush by the Supreme Court. Besides, these days our electoral procedures and machinery are so completely fucked, the election itself starts off spoiled.

We might as well vote for the funniest candidate. That’s Nader. Check out some Nader humor:

“Dear President Bush:

I was listening to your address before the self-described Conservative Political Action Committee gathering in Washington, D.C. last week, while reviewing materials on occupational hazards in the workplace.”

The funny part is that he actually was listening to Bush’s address while reviewing materials on occupational hazards in the workplace. This one’s even funnier:

“Controlling what is now corporate capitalism in all its varieties and contradictions is the task of organized civic values, law and order, quality competition, shareholder power over executives, consumer information, judicial remedies, and environmentally benign technologies. These checks, along with self-restraint by businesses (out of what used to be called “enlightened self-interest”), are needed to keep capitalism in its proper place so that a democratic culture can flourish toward the greater purposes of life for present and future generations.”

Democratic culture… hilarious. Organized civic values, self-restraint by businesses… this guy is pure comedy. Did I mention he looks like a Muppet Columbo?!?

The furor over California’s recent disenfranchisement of 50,000 voters, may prove to be an enormous over-reaction. Fabricated sources close to Votelessness indicate that of the 50,000 votes that will likely remain uncounted due to the constitution-mockingly awful “double bubble” design of the ballot, fully 98 percent were most likely cast by hippie weirdos. So, it’s not real disenfranchisement, like it would be if actual Democrats or Republicans were not getting their votes counted.

Experts agree that hippies are prone to do stupid shit like vote for third party candidates. A future symposium of said experts could then unanimously concur that such behavior in itself is enough to indicate that hippies don’t think they are using real votes.

California’s constitution demands that the intent of the voter be counted. As Bart Thelman of the legal profession suggests, “If themguys want to throw their vote away by voting for a third party candidate, that’s fine. Just don’t ask me to count their stupid votes in a Democratic Presidential primary. You know what a hippie’s intent is? To get stoned. Can’t count that in a primary election, no matter what the constitution says.”

LA County has been in a whirlwind of controversy and blame deflection, since the Super Tuesday disaster left somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 ballots uncountable. The problem was there was an extra step required to fill out a ballot if voters chose not to declare a party allegiance. Ballots in which the extra step was not taken were declared unreadable and subsequently not counted.

It was a little step. An easy little step. All voters had to do was indicate whether they wanted to vote in the Democratic Party primary or the American Independent Party primary. Lazy hippies don’t fare well with extra steps, which leading authorities might say could explain why they appear to have been so disproportionately disenfranchised.

Hippie weirdos are extraordinarily fond of phrases that resemble “decline to state”, according to a guy who roomed with one in college. Since California’s voter registration has a “decline to state” option for party selection, hippies, we must assume, overwhelmingly filled in that box. We also assume they filled it in with a smiley face.

Our in-house research team found data very much like the data one might collect from a legitimate scientific study that could link every hippie weirdo in California to being stoned. The same study also found actual evidence that being stoned can make it difficult to follow directions. These two findings, evaluated from a more comprehensive perspective, not only explain why so many hippie voters screwed up their ballot, it illustrates the mechanism by which they essentially disenfranchised themselves.

Society really doesn’t need to count hippie votes, and since the outcome of the primary in California couldn’t possibly be changed even if an actual count of actual votes revealed that every one of them were cast for Hillary, it’s a good idea to not count everybody’s vote. Obviously, it is statistically impossible for all of the uncounted ballots to be for Hillary, since the uncounted ballots all appear to have been cast by hippies. That means at least a handful of write-in votes for Jerry.

Florida screws up again. Voters all over the state were confused and confounded in their attempts to vote in the state’s primary elections. Democrats trying to cast their ballots were told that there was no Democratic primary in Florida this year. They were told this by state election workers – the very same workers who’s sole job it is to ensure that Floridians know how, when and where to vote in these significant primary elections. Additionally, vote tallies in Daytona Beach City didn’t match the number of voters who signed in. Ann McFall, the election supervisor for Daytona Beach said, “the glitch shouldn’t be cause for concern.”

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