News Roundup for 10/14/10

Rich Whitey for Governor

-Headline of the Day-
"Whitney is 'Whitey' on some ballots."

A typo is creating an unfortunate problem for an Illinois Green Party gubernatorial candidate. According to the report, the name of "Rich Whitney is misspelled as 'Whitey' on electronic-voting machines in nearly two dozen wards -- about half in predominantly African-American areas -- and election officials said Wednesday the problem cannot be corrected by Election Day."

That's right, "Rich Whitey" AKA "The Man" is going to be on the ballot. This is not good. "I don't want to be identified as 'Whitey.' If this is happening in primarily African-American wards, that's an even bigger concern," Whitney said. "I don't know if this is machine politics at play or why this happened... In any event, whether it is or not, this has to be disconcerting to a voter, and I wonder how this will impact the vote."

Probably not at all, since Green Party candidates -- for good or ill -- are usually blips in polling. In fact, it's definitely not at all, since the report tells us, "Whitney's name is spelled correctly on the machines' initial screens showing all of the candidates' names, but it is misspelled on review screens that later show a voter his or her choices." So really, no big deal. If someone's planning to vote for Whitney, you'd hope they'll be able to figure out what happened.

"This is a difficult situation," says Jim Allen, spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections. "We'll make the best of it. But the important thing is the name is spelled correctly where it counts, and that's where people are making the selection."

Besides, he now has the smartass vote all tied up; "I voted for the rich whitey! Hahahahaha!" (Chicago Sun-Times)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, there's this lady in California who's trying to buy the governor's mansion with oodles of money! That may sound bad, but Uncle Mark explains why it's really good... Yay!


Click for animation

Wait, that doesn't sound good. Maybe that's why she's losing... (MarkFiore.com)

-Bonus HotD-
"Sarah Palin advisers prepped Christine O'Donnell for debate."

Yeah, that probably wasn't the best idea... (Plum Line)