[Vision2020] Florida Shocker

[Ron Force]

>From Andy Borowitz (borowitzreport.com)

FLORIDA TO DECIDE ELECTION BY SHOW OF HANDS
State Loses Instruction Manual for Electronic Voting Machines

Attempting to head off the kind of voting irregularities that threw the 2000
election into chaos, Florida voting officials announced today that the
state's presidential contest would be determined by a "show of hands."

In a statewide address broadcast on live television this morning, Florida
Secretary of State Glenda Hood instructed all Florida voters to start
heading for a vacant trailer park on the outskirts of Tampa where the
official show of hands will take place.

While acknowledging that a show of hands was an unorthodox way for Florida
to determine who will receive the state's twenty-seven electoral votes, Ms.
Hood said the move became necessary after it was discovered late last week
that the state had lost the instruction manual for its controversial Diebold
electronic voting machines.

An early test of the machines last Wednesday set off alarms among voting
officials when the electronic tally showed conservative commentator Pat
Buchanan winning the state with 87% of the vote, despite not appearing on
the ballot.

"After searching for the instruction manual, we moved on to Plan B, which
was to operate the voting machines with a hand-crank," Secretary of State
Hood said. "But then nobody could find the crank."

Florida Governor Jeb Bush said the show-of-hands method should not shake
Floridians' confidence in the accuracy of the returns, saying, "We will keep
counting hands until we get the result we want."

Elsewhere, Osama bin Laden lashed out at American broadcast networks for
failing to air the final sentence of his tape last Friday, which was: "I'm
Osama bin Laden, and I approve this message."