RSSOregon votes are in!
November 17, 2008
kosmo - See all 763 of my articles
[Note: this is intended to be a humorous parody of the relatively short delay in declaring a winner in the Oregon senate race. It is not intended to be an accurate representation of the state’s election process.]
As we trot toward the festivities of Thanksgiving, the diligent election workers in the state of Oregon continue their thankless job of counting the votes. We expect a winner to be declared in the senate race any day now.
TCO caught up with Joe Saycanusi of the Oregon Secretary of State’s office.
TCO: Joe – Do you mind if I call you Joe? It is now 2 weeks past election day and we’re still waiting for a winner in the Merkley/Smith Senate race. What, exactly, is causing the delay?
JS: Well, TCO, we are experiencing multiple issues. As you know, all voting in Oregon is done through the mail. This year, we have had a bit of a West Nile epidemic, and this has really put a strain on the herd.
TCO: Er, what’s that? Do you mean that the mail in Oregon is actually delivered via pony express?
JS: Of course. What else would we use? Oxen are strong, but they’re pretty slow. We had a second health issue as well – several of the horses came down with constipation. Believe me, when a horse is waiting to take a crap, you’re just going to have to wait it out. Really, I don’t see what the big fuss is all about. The new congress doesn’t start work for a while yet. As long as we’ve declared a winner by then, everything is cool.
TCO: Well, Joe, that’s very fascinating. Thank you for enlightening us.
TCO: We were also cable to catch up with a precinct captain in Multnomah County. We are pleased to speak to John Morgan.
TCO: Captain Morgan – how are you feeling this morning?
CM: Aye, a bit hung over, to be honest. We’ve been doing this bloody counting for umpteen days now. It’s enough to drive you a bit mad after a while, so I went on a bit of a bender last night.
TCO: I believe that you had a bit of a problem with some votes in one of your precincts. Can you explain what happened?
CM: Well, the middle of last week, our cleaning people came in at night to scrub the place down. Unfortunately, when our counters got in the next morning, they discovered an absolute tragedy. Our permanent record of the vote counting had been destroyed – the blackboard was scrubbed clean! Even worse, the ballots had been thrown out with the trash!
TCO: Wow. That’s horrible. Yet, you are expecting to have complete results …
CM: I know what you’re thinking. No, we didn’t just make up some numbers. We grabbed our boots and headed out to the dump. After two days in the dump, we recovered every single ballot. Then we went work, removing chewing gum and taco sauce from the ballots. It was hard work, but I am confident that every single vote has been tallied correctly.
TCO: Wow, that’s quite the ballot tale, captain Morgan. That’s it for this installment of the news. Join us next time as we oversee the counting of ballots in the Alaska senate race.