The official website of the Department of State of Pennsylvania declared Tuesday that Barack Obama lost that state’s primary to Hillary Clinton by a ten percentage point margin. The same website also officially declared that Barack Obama lost to Barack Obama, who in turn lost to Barack Obama who lost to Hillary Clinton.

At the time of the declaration, which was toward the beginning of the day, official results showed Barack Obama with 157,434 votes. Barack Obama was listed as having received 24,018 votes, and Barack Obama, according to official Department of State results, had received no votes. When reached for comment, the Obama camp said, “Senator Obama ran a great campaign, he deserved to beat both us and Senator Obama. We also believe that, if it weren’t for a glitch in the machinery used to tabulate the results of this election, Senator Clinton would not have defeated Senator Obama, Senator Obama or Senator Obama.

When asked to comment on statistical possibility of Senator Obama receiving zero votes, Pennsylvania’s Department of State spokesperson said, “Senator Obama’s zero votes will not affect the outcome of this election any more than Senator Obama’s one hundred fifty thousand votes.” When Votelessness then asked how to tell which Barack Obama received the most votes, given the remarkable similarities in spelling, the State Department’s spokesperson continued, “The one with the most votes got the most votes. Don’t worry, it won’t affect the outcome of the election. I’m sure of it.” He then grinned maniacally and gently caressed an electronic voting machine.

In a stump speech in whatever frigging state they are campaigning in now, Hillary Clinton was cheered on by her highly screened, selected, and planted supporters as they all crammed together just enough to fill up the entire camera shot. Under signs displaying her name and claiming any number of broad-based, overly-generalized yet positive slogans, she gave a rousing speech about being a duck.

“I am a duck” she said as the crowd erupted with applause as if on cue and not even listening to what she was saying.

“I am a duck” she repeated, this time cutting the crowd off before they could applaud with “quack, quack, quack, quack…”. The crowd then erupted in applause and cheers twice as strong as before…apparently thinking she said something meaningful.

Appearing as though she had been working on her comedic timing in order to keep up with the brilliant comedic rhetoric of Bush, Cheney, and Obama, she cleverly waited until the crowd died down completely, then, appearing as if she were once again about to say something serious if not meaningful, grinned as she added “quack”.

The moronic crowd of supporters exploded in laughter as they each jockeyed to be on camera.

She then continued, “I’m a duck…but the people of (insert your city, state name here) want jobs right? I can sit here and quack all night then follow it up with some generalized promise of some vague improvement from our current conditions just to get your vote. I can sit here and say anything I want and it really doesn’t mean anything in reality. Why? You ask why? It should be obvious….I’m a duck.” The crowd once again erupted in applause, although a few seemed confused by her use of complicated terminology.

Concluding with a final summary of what she believes is wrong with American politics, Hillary said “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck…then it’s probably a duck on the take running for office, and it should make no difference what the duck says, the duck is rich and doesn’t care about you because it’s just a damn duck who wants to live in the White House….do you have any clue what the average I.Q. is? You know what…nevermind. Oh yeah, and screw China because we need those jobs here in America despite the fact that we aren’t willing to work that hard for such little money.”

Apparently stunned by her blatant honesty, a hush fell over the crowd. Realizing her mistake, she quickly recovered with “Republicans suck! Quack, quack, quack quack…” and walked off stage waving as the crowd went wild with blind adoration and/or conditioned dislike of Republicans.

Rumors have begun circulating inside the Beltway that President Bush is thinking of switching to the Democratic Party. A made up source close to the President said he overheard Mr. Bush tell an advisor, “I don’t like being in the minority. It blows. How those black folks handle it, is beyond me – like basic arithmetic and grammar. I gotta tip my sombrero to them.” When asked if the move would be controversial, the President replied, “Why? I’m a uniter, not a divider. And what better way to unite then to just mosey on over to the other side.” Speech writers are said to be hard at work on the President’s announcement, despite having no idea at whom to point their mean-spirited rhetoric. Choice lines include: “Gay marriage? Not only am I now for it. I’m fixing up my twins with that Chastity Bono and Melissa Etheridge.” “Global Warming? Hell yeah, it’s real, and it sucks!” “Gun Control?!? ATF agents at this very moment are raiding Blair House to disarm the Vice President. Everyone knows he ain’t got no control over his guns” In an unprecedented show of bi-partisan unity House Leader, Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader, John Boehner are looking into legislation to block the President. A source that could be close to the President (if he existed) said that his official response to the proposed legislation is, “It ain’t nothin’ but a party, y’all.”

Please visit Paul Lander’s website

In a mad rush to see who could say the most mean, dumb stuff about their opponents, Senators Clinton and Obama both used the last few minutes of airtime they could procure before the Pennsylvania primary to lash out at each other in the most ham-handed and sophomoric manner they could. The jeers and barbs fell barely short of the record childish behavior set in 1988 by Michael Dukakis and George H. W. Bush. In that election the Bush camp accused Mr. Dukakis of being a criminal-loving pansy and stated that if they ever saw him alone, they were going to give him a swirlie. The Dukakis campaign responded with, “criminal-loving pansy?!? We know they are, but what is Mike.” To which Bush Sr.’s people responded, “It is a good thing today is opposite day and that Vice President Bush is rubber and Gov. Dukakis glue.”

This weekend Mrs. Clinton criticized Obama for saying that he thought John McCain would make a better president than George W. Bush. She stated, “”We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain, and I will be that nominee.” What Mrs. Clinton failed to take into consideration is that Mr. Obama may also have said that the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity™ waffle he had for breakfast would also make a better president than George W. Bush, but that in no way indicates that Mr. Obama thinks it would be a good idea for that waffle to do so.

Mr. Obama responded to Clinton’s desperate attempt to find something negative to say about him, by desperately attempting to find something negative to say about Mrs. Clinton. “Trying to score cheap political points… doesn’t make for good government,” he said, mid-waffle, “but six different kinds of mostly fruitlike substances do make for a good waffle.” He then added, “Hillary Sucks!!!” and pronounced all three exclamation marks.

Rush Limbaugh is eating up some serious column-inches in the papers, the ‘zines (both e- and maga), and he’s hot shit in the blogosphere (which, despite how it sounds, is nothing like the Thunderdome). His wildly inappropriate and utterly reprehensible use of his radio program to encourage widespread election fraud has earned him another stint in the middle of the spotlight. The media haven’t focused on Rush like this since he went to rehab for his addiction to oxycontin, but this time it isn’t his substance dependency that has everyone abuzz. This time it is his treason.

That’s right, by encouraging registered Republicans in Ohio to switch parties last minute so they could vote for Hillary and give John McCain a better shot at the White House, the Big Fat Idiot was actually encouraging massive-scale election fraud.

“[Ohio] law states that a voter who is challenged by poll workers to defend the sincerity of their last minute switch of party affiliation must sign an affidavit confirming their allegiance to that party’s principles.”

In Cuyahoga County alone, more than 16,000 registered Republicans switched party affiliation last minute. Similar phenomena were witnessed all over the state. Sure, it sounds sneaky and it is, but sneaky isn’t against the law – just against any viable code of decency.

However…

“[Ohio] law states that a voter who is challenged by poll workers to defend the sincerity of their last minute switch of party affiliation must sign an affidavit confirming their allegiance to that party’s principles.” –from Phillyist

Many of BFI’s Dittoheads, feeling an overwhelming sense of accomplishment after helping to subvert the principals upon which our country is founded, blogged about their experiences. Ordinarily, the most any of them accomplish is saving room for dessert or finding the remote control, so even a little felonious manipulation of democratic processes seems like a lot. Unfortunately for them, blogposts make pretty good evidence that their allegiance to the Democratic Party’s principles is specious at best.

Here’s what one of the morons wrote on his blog:

“Lastly, they had me sign the affirmation about switching parties and supporting the principles of the Democrat party. I said that would be easy, because they don’t have any. Everybody got a good chuckle as there isn’t a Democrat within 5 miles any direction from where I vote. I then proceeded to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. Dirty as it felt at the time, I have a feeling I’ll be rewarded in the long run.”

“Lastly, they had me sign the affirmation about switching parties and supporting the principles of the Democrat party. I said that would be easy, because they don’t have any. Everybody got a good chuckle as there isn’t a Democrat within 5 miles any direction from where I vote. I then proceeded to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. Dirty as it felt at the time, I have a feeling I’ll be rewarded in the long run.”

It’s really stupid to blog about how you and all the elections workers had a laugh as you fraudulently signed a legal document, while they, government officials, looked on in approval. Really stupid.

Well, it seems that is the point. Rush is coming out with a new how-to book – Dumb Crimes You Morons Should Commit to Promote My Agenda, and his election fraud scheme was just a summary of the first chapter. In the book, Rush will outline a number of poorly-planned crimes the Dittoheads can commit in their spare time and with minimal investment of energy. Advanced copies won’t be available, but sources close to the Limbaugh organization are hinting that they will range from misdemeanor-level gay bashing to felonies like extortion and perjury. All of the hackneyed schemes were concocted by the Big Fat Idiot himself – most while he was on a couple of oxies and some really dank hippie-grade kind bud (no wait, that wasn’t Rush… He was on coke. Oxycontin and coke. And some blue pills that he found in the pocket of those Khakis he never wears.). Each individual scheme leaves enormous amounts of evidence that can be used to convict the participant, all of them are morally repugnant in nature and motivated by small-mindedness and knee-jerk reactions, and very few of them have any chance of success.

An expert on dumb crimes, who asked to remain anonymous, said, “Those are some of the dumbest crimes I have ever heard of. You’d have to be an absolute moron to try any of them.”

Limbaugh’s book is expected to sell millions (as soon as it comes out on CD).

March 8th, 2008 – DuPage County, IL

Electronic voting machines manufactured by Diebold (now Premier Elections Solutions) proved how much easier voting can be in the digital age. In Illinois, in the special election held to replace Dennis Hastert electronic voting machines did voters the courtesy of telling them how they should vote.

Diebold electronic voting machines in DuPage county aided voters in their decision by displaying the word “Republican” on the screen. The screen on which the word was displayed is the actual touch-screen that voters use to make their selections, which was a tremendous time-saver. It saved many voters uncounted seconds, because it allowed them to be told how to vote and to cast that vote without moving their eyes more than a few inches.

In at least one precinct, elections judges placed masking tape over the word “Republican” that appeared on the screen of the Diebold-manufactured electronic voting machines, presumably because they thought that voting had been made too easy by the labor-saving devices that Diebold had hard-coded into the electronic voting machines. The judges likely thought that having the electronic voting machines tell voters which party they should vote for took all the fun out of election day.

The non-partisan Illinois Ballot Integrity Project is concerned that having electronic voting machines displaying the word “Republican” on the same screen that voters use to cast their ballots might influence the outcome of the election. Of course it will. It will make the election easier. The electronic voting machines are designed to make voting easier – just like all machines are designed to make something easier. But IBIP doesn’t want easy elections. They want, “to inform and educate the public, media and government officials about important election-integrity issues and to promote the adoption of legislation and policies designed to secure the democratic process.”

Making the disastrous ritualized façade we call voting resemble democratic processes in any way would take enormous amounts of legislation and policies. That is not easy. That is a pain in the ass.

Diebold just wants to make things easy on us. Fortunately for lazy voters everywhere, Diebold and DuPage County Board of Elections know some slimy sleaze mongers that are using Turd Blossom Rove’s despicable tactics destroy the non-partisan IBIP. Soon, the citizen’s-action organization will be widely considered a sub-division of the Democratic Party and their interference in easy elections will be dismissible as partisan rhetoric.

Diebold did not care to comment, but we made something up anyway. “The judges shouldn’t have put tape on the touch screen voting machines,” a pretend Diebold representative commented. “It can leave gunk, and you have to get a special solvent to get it off.”

Despite early indications that easy-voting was going to be successful in Illinois, the Democratic candidate, Bill Foster won the election.

March 4th, 2008 – New Mexico

Representative Heather Wilson of New Mexico is accused of buying votes in her state’s presidential primary election. Ms. Wilson reportedly* paid $35 (American) per hour for voters to show up at the Republican Delegate Convention for two hours. That results in a net total of $70 per vote.

Leading economists suggest that this year’s surge in vote prices could affect other aspects of our economy. As a result of the sudden upturn in the price of votes, the price of keeping a congressperson in-pocket is expected to rise, as are the costs associated with electronic voting machine tampering and voter intimidation.

Thugs, ordinarily bargain priced because of their inherent propensity to enjoy their work, are expected to cost 20-30 percent more for use in on-the-ground voter mis-information and discouragement campaigns. A spokesperson for an association that may or may not have something to do with the thugs said, “Thugs feel they are just as efficacious at disenfranchising voters and manipulating elections results as paid voters.” She continued, “All they want is to be compensated appropriately vis-à-vis purchased votes.”

If thug prices increase, as they are expected to do, hackers are likely to follow suit and demand similar compensation to tamper with electronic voting machines. Corruption industry analysts predict that hackers will demand an even higher premium to hack Diebold (Premier Elections Solutions) machines, because the code in the Diebold machines is so pathetic.

If corruption prices continue to rise industry-wide, it may become more cost-effective to run legitimate elections and let the people decide. Such a paradigm shift could cripple or even destroy the entire national corruption industry, which could lead to a spike in jobless claims.

*Actually, the reports about Ms. Wilson’s felonies were killed by the News Director at KKOB in Albuquerque. Rep. Wilson pressured the station not to air Laura Mac Callum’s report about her malfeasance and the station caved. Ms. Mac Callum, a 32-year veteran, resigned after the station killed her story.

In the hotly contested Democratic Primaries in Ohio this Tuesday many polling stations ran out of paper ballots, which prompted the Obama campaign to sue to keep many stations open an additional hour and a half. Obama’s spokespeople explained that it was intended to allow time for more paper ballots to be delivered.

What the Obama campaign did not know at the time is that the ladies rooms in many of these same polling stations had also run out of paper. Had they known, they could have had the election workers who were delivering the ballots stop by the 7-11 or something on the way over. Unfortunately, no facial quality tissue rolls were included in the deliveries.

The Obama campaign’s inability to accurately assess the degree of paper shortages at polling stations further disenfranchised a percentage of voters, all of them women, when those who felt the call, but were too demure to use the men’s room returned home before having a chance to cast their ballot.

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign said, “You really need to stop asking me to comment on ridiculous, made-up bullshit.”

Tuesday, February 5th, Elections officials in Chicago gave voters the inkless plastic styluses from electronic touch-screen voting machines so they could fill out the paper, optical scan ballots they were issued. The styluses resemble the stylus one might find tethered to the checkout at Target and contain absolutely no ink or other substance that might leave a mark.

Optical Scan machines work by optically scanning paper ballots for marks left by voters. It’s like taking a standardized test (except that standardized test takers usually prepare for months in advance and often spend fortunes on intensive preparatory classes, whereas voters might be seeing some of the material for the very first time.)

At least twenty voters ‘marked’ their ballots with the magic pens. Some asked the poll workers if they were certain the inkless, touchscreen styluses would register their intended votes and were assured that the styluses would record every vote cast, despite their not leaving a visual mark.

Poll workers assured voters they had been trained in the use of the magic pens.

Needless to say, when the optical scan machine used to tally the votes encountered twenty ballots marked with magic ink, they all were rejected as blank.

Read the whole story:

Election officials probe use of ‘magic’ invisible ink pens in 49th Ward

The secret ballot has long been a pretty important part of functioning democracy. It seems that if people are able to find out how you voted, they could coerce you to do it differently than you might be inclined to otherwise do. I know if someone with a recently-broken nose and a large, slightly-bent segment of iron pipe asked me to vote for Ken McGillicuddy for city council, I would at least be amenable to the idea of reading through Mr. McGillicuddy’s brochures.

If the same guy implied that my not voting for Mr. McGillicuddy would result in a modest to generous amount of blunt force trauma, I would most assuredly vote McGillicuddy.

Until recently I would have wondered how the thuggish enforcer-type with the bad acne scars and mirrored wrap-arounds would find out how I voted. It is supposed to be a secret.

Now, however, I don’t wonder any more.

A couple of activists in Ohio managed to use publicly available data and timestamps produced by iVotronic machines, manufactured by Election Systems and Software (or ES&S) to reconstruct 2006’s election results. Their system matched names on voter logs with the timecoded results from ES&S’s machines with alarming accuracy. This allowed them to determine, within statistically viable margins of error, which voter voted for which candidate or issue.

In sum, they figured out how people voted.

The iVotronic machine that ES&S produces is used in about 38 states.

Read More:

Not So Secret Ballots in Ohio