Vol. 4 Issue
10 -- Nov. 11, 2000
ELECTION SPECIAL
Football Happenings
(or "Who
wants to lead the USA?")
IN THIS SPECIAL ISSUE:
[ Indecision 2000 - Every vote counts, except yours.
[ FBH Costume Contest - Life imitating Art imitating Life.This is Ralph. Go!
We may know who's going to the Super Bowl in 2001 before we know who's going to the White House. Crazy isn't it? But really, should we have expected anything less? Year 2000 has been a crazy, unpredictable, year of wackiness. First, the world didn't end at Midnight 1/1/00 as predicted, then both New York baseball teams reach the World Series, then Ralph wins an FBH Quarter, then the Jets came back from the dead on a Tuesday morning. Now this! It's Y2Krazy!!
To add to the craziness in my life, the wonderful county of Denton, Texas somehow erased my name from their database and I am no longer registered to vote. How nice to find this out on the day of the most important Presidential election in our country's history. It makes no sense why I would not be on their list. I have not moved in the last 5 1/2 years, and I have voted at this same polling place 3 times prior to this one. Needless to say, I was quite pissed upon hearing the news I would not be allowed to vote. Tuesday morning, I arrived at the polling place, ready to go. When my name was not on the printed list, I had to sit and wait 45 minutes while the old guy running the polling place tried to phone the Denton County offices and have them check their computers for my name. "Not on there..." was the reply once he got past all the busy signals, and I was denied one of our basic rights as a citizen. (I was not the only one either, 2 others were denied with the same phone call, and my girlfriend's Mom, who has lived in the same residence for over 30 years, was also denied her right to vote.) Was this a widespread thing throughout the state? Who knows? Could have been. But with the other voting problems nationally, and with Bush easily winning the Texas vote, it's a non-issue for the press here.
In a state of great agitation, I phoned my Mom to tell her of my plight. Upon hearing my great dismay at not being allowed to vote, it made her proud. "We raised you right," she said. "If you're this upset over not being able to vote, we did our jobs."
"If this thing comes down to one vote separating the two candidates," I said, "I'll be REALLY angry." How prophetic that statement was to become. Thank God I don't live in Florida or New Mexico, where one vote actually makes the difference.
It's very strange how things work out sometimes. Just by coincidence, or by will of the calendar, we have our own little Voting session within FBH at the same time that most of us get to vote in the ultimate election. And if you thought that neither election could be wrought with fraud, you would be wrong.
While a few thousand elderly people in Florida couldn't figure out how to work a ballot and in doing so, tainted the entire election process, so FBH had some ballot issues of our own. It seems we had a pair of overzealous voters who decided to stuff the ballot box. I guess I should have expected so much with my pleas of "Vote Early and Vote Often!" Some of you took that to epic proportions.
The most creative voting was by Roy who voted for every candidate except himself as Bobby Valentine. And as I sat at my PC late one night last week, I received a vote submission at 2:49:30 AM. Then I got another one, then another, then another, 32 votes in all, in the span of 3 minutes and 21 seconds, and all of them for Mr. & Mrs. Kessler. I thought maybe the server had gone wacky and was resubmitting one vote over and over. A few minutes later, I got picks from one Paul Kessler. Busted!! I confronted him on it, and he admitted it was during a night of heavy drinking with friends. But who could blame him? The Kesslers as track stars was one of the best costumes and received many other votes as well.
I decided, to be fair I'd give him credit for a couple of those drunk votes. And at that, it made the race Too Close To Call. I then encouraged others who hadn't voted to look past their apathy and vote. It worked, I received a few more votes the next morning. A few days later, another stuffing incident took place. Between 8:26:04 and 8:26:55 AM on Thursday, another 8 votes for the Kesslers were submitted. I have no idea who submitted those.
So I've called upon a couple of former Secretaries Of State to come down to Texas and further scrutinize the voting results and officiate over the recount. We had some reports that our ballot was too confusing, and several accidentally voted for someone else. But our ballot was actually easier to use than a Butterfly Ballot in Palm Beach. "America should look to FBH for a better method of collecting votes," was what Warren Christopher had to say. Also, reports of handing out Candy Cigarettes to get people to vote were unconfirmed.
Art imitating Life. If we accept every single vote in this election, we have a clear cut winner. But, if the courts disallow most of these questionable ballots, someone else would be winner. You can't make this stuff up, folks.
With all the votes counting, The Kesslers win in a landslide. And deservedly so. But without those 32 drunken votes from the man himself, it's a tie. Throw out the 8 votes that came late and in the span of 51 seconds, and The 1969 Mets win the contest.
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It may be weeks, or even months before all the lawyers and judges and politicians get this whole mess figured out. Meanwhile, protesters have been gathering outside the LBFBHHQ and have brought the FBH Staff to their collective knees. Some say that a Halloween costume issue is nice, but it doesn't make up for over 3 weeks of relative inactivity on the website. Others are saying that while the standings have been updated regularly, they can't possibly be correct if Ralph is in the top 5.
We expect to have a statement from The Commish soon. Possibly a videotaped segment of him answering a few questions from a pool of reporters, or possibly some taped shots of him playing touch football in his yard, acting like a Kennedy. Either way, the world awaits a verdict.
The Candidates CommentIn a Press Conference held early this morning, a couple of the Candidates had this to say...
Unofficial Winner, Paul Kessler: "I swear that all of the votes for me and Uchi were on the up and up. If you continue to contest this vote I will sue......"
Last Place Finisher John Kardel [Considering the fact that he didn't even vote for himself...]:
"I don't doubt a number of those ballots, of those votes that were cast for me probably were intended for Mr. & Mrs. Kessler", John 'Duffy' Kardel told CNN's 'Larry King Live' Thursday night. That number was 1. But he said he should keep the vote. "I don't see how you can take that back even though folks are saying they intended to vote for someone else. I think it stands," he said. Earlier Thursday, on NBC's 'Today' program, Kardel said he did "not want to take any vote that does not belong to me, but I will."
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