Monday 8th November 2004
Brother Jeb's unshakeable faith sweeps Bush to victory
Yea verily, the Lord helpeth those that helpeth themselves
by Stowbury
By the late afternoon of Tuesday 2 November, the stark evidence from the exit polls of a decisive Democratic surge had led a number of experienced Republican pundits to shake their heads gloomily and issue veiled warnings of impending defeat. Others, like the presidential candidate's irrepressible brother Jeb, took their predictions from a higher authority and were cheerfully bucking the trend. In an interview on Fox TV the Florida Governor wore his faith on his sleeve as he talked of a personal relationship with the almighty saviour who "moves in mysterious ways to deliver electoral justice to the American people in their time of need".
His most recent conversation on the spiritual hotline had only served to increase the Governor's confidence. He was prepared to stake his reputation on a major turnaround once the serious counting began. "Don't lose heart," he appealed to the Republican faithful. "I foresee a benign intervention beyond human understanding kicking in well before bedtime."
Born-again leaders throughout the nation were equally unperturbed by the purely statistical summaries of how Americans claimed to have voted, especially in those districts where the antiquated election machinery had been replaced, removing the threat of illicit tampering. The miracle touch-screen technology would not only heighten and extend the user experience, spectactularly lengthening the queues and providing a sceptical world with memorable images of vibrant US democracy in action, but more importantly guarantee a safe result, eliminating the danger of the hanging chad and other perils of a paper-based system which had almost given the game away in 2000.
Of course there were sceptics who claimed the new technology would bring with it new opportunities for corruption. Suspicions had been raised by a news item hidden away on page 11 of the Miami Herald earlier in the year. The hard-up Mayor Alex Penniless of impoverished Miami-Dade County on the blighted periphery of the city had controversially snubbed the generous financial package available to counties who upgraded their voting systems when he ignored the approved suppliers on the federal list and awarded the contract instead to an untried local company Soluciones Transparentes Inc., with whom he no doubt had personal connections.
With the trials of the transparent solution appearing to be going smoothly the spiritual nostrils of Governor Bush smelled a rat and he swooped on the mayor's office unannounced, bringing with him a crack team of electoral experts to put the suspect machines to a sterner test. In a controlled experiment the investigators simulated the voting behaviour of a hundred residents casting fifty votes for George W Bush and fifty for his rival John Kerry.
To the unwary user the system appeared to be faultless. Each choice of candidate was correctly confirmed. But when the auditors checked the votes actually counted in the final result they were perturbed to discover that President Bush had a mere fifty while Senator Kerry had a staggering fifty.
Considering the magnitude of the distortion and the devastating effect it would have on the presidential race if replicated in other marginal hotspots the Governor's rebuke was relatively mild.
"What the hell kind of lousy spick chickenshit system are you assholes fuc*king around with?" he asked the wayward county officials. The embarrassed Mayor, feigning prior ignorance of the defect, put in an emergency support call to chief systems engineer Pedro Cristal of Soluciones Transparentes. He'd better get over there straightaway and save his company's ass. On arrival the ashamed engineer prostrated himself before the Governor, begging forgiveness for the malfunction and assuring him they were working night and day trying to figure it out.
"We just can't find where it's going wrong, sir," he explained, poring over the roll of printout which provided a comprehensive audit trail of the most recent test. "Here mister Bush, maybe you can see something," he suggested.
Mr Bush had seen more than enough. "Hold it right there boy," he ordered, unhitching his belt. But instead of the expected whipping he announced "I reckon there's a module missing here, let's see what I can do." The assembled company gazed awestruck as the Governor bared his own buttocks, settled down, and with a magisterial grunt disharged a stonking Florida turd onto the office floor.
Wiping his butt with the roll of printout offered by Mr Cristal, he handed it back to the engineer with conscientious advice to get on the first boat back to Puerto Rico with his "goddam shitrag paper trail" stuffed up his "greasy wetback ass".
Mayor Penniless now fell under the spotlight. Reeling from the powerful stench of judgement he pleaded with the Governor for mercy over his ill-considered experiment. Jeb wasn't a man to hold a grudge, and within two weeks a comprehensive regeneration package for Miami-Dade County was in place, fully funded from Washington. The faulty Latino equipment was cast back onto the scrapheap where it came from and replaced by humming banks of Blackbox 2004s from thoroughbred vendor Diebold Systems, pre-configured with HARDSHIT (Hand A Republican Democratic Support, Hiding Internal Transfer).
Thanks to the vigilance of Governor Bush and like-minded patriots across the nation the voice of America rang out loud and clear on 2 November. The unedifying spectacle of a dead heat or worse was avoided and the cherished values of the world's foremost democracy were secure for another four years.