Saturday 11th November 2000
Nuffin the Hamster reports on some voting irregularities


Of all the things which Florida State may be remembered for in its short but illustrious history, it's ability at maths will never be one of them. Indeed, exit polls conducted on Tuesday showed that while Gore had 52% of the vote, Bush had near on 56%. A clear omen - if anyone had heeded it - that all was not well with the election.

I've now been in the state of Florida for near on two days and have, so far, experienced just about every emotion possible. From the remotest hint of anger at the lack of coherency in the ballot papers to almost full scale depression that the greatest technological country in the world, the one nation who's looked to for leading Internet technology and computer wizardry is the same one that's now being offered a hand of help by the Russian Government who, even now, will send their citizens over with abaci to complete the electoral process.

Following claim and counter-claim by both sides, there comes fresh on their heels the humility of Pat Buchanan - one of the candidates in Florida - who confessed that even he felt that his near on 50% of the vote in one of the counties to be well in excess of the level of support that even he would have thought possible.

'It's quite obvious' a spokesman told us 'that voters got confused when they saw the nature of the ballot paper for it appeared as if marking the card in one place was a vote for Bush when, in actuality, it was the wrong side and a vote for Buchanan. After all' they continued 'no one in their right minds would vote for Pat Buchanan'

Of course, this statement raises more questions than it answers for, as Yafa the hamster pointed out, was it really accurate to say that anyone in their right minds would have voted for either Gore or Bush if they'd really read the ballot paper accurately? Moreover, wasn't it really the case that the hamster vote was significantly reduced because most of its supporters thought they were voting hamster when, in effect, the paper had been so designed to confuse them into voting for either Democrat or Republican?

'It's an evil declaration' Diddley Squat IV told us 'that accuses the American people of willingly voting for either Bush or Gore and of knowing what they were doing. Why, the intelligent vote would obviously have been hamster and the election should take place again with papers that are less confusing'

Votes for Candidate Nader are also a point in question - for many Americans with visual impairment took one look at their papers and mistakenly read 'Hamster' for 'Nader' and increased the vote which would have been significantly smaller.

Although the RW doesn't like to make political statements, it feels duty bound to call for a re-election with simple ballot papers that contain just the three main candidates - Republican, Democrat and Hamster - that all confusion might be removed. In this way, we feel, the American people will be seen to elect the first hamster to office, given that there's really only one candidate who's capable of running the country.

Shortly before we went to press, we learnt that, should this remain unresolved by Christmas, a 97 year old Senator who needs oxygen at frequent intervals will be asked to stand in to run the country. Our humble plea, therefore, to both Bush and Gore is to show mercy to the poor guy - after all, the stress'll kill him.

Nuffin the Hamster writes for the Rodent Weekly.
This article appears courtesy of that paper.

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