AL-QAEDA PLANNING TO DISRUPT FALL ELECTION WITH MALFUNCTIONING ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES
Florida Seen as Target [by Andy Borowitz]
Troubling new intelligence information indicates that the al-Qaeda terror network may be planning to disrupt the fall presidential election by installing thousands of malfunctioning electronic voting machines throughout the country, focusing their efforts on the state of Florida.
The latest information, culled by intelligence sources in recent weeks, suggests that al-Qaeda operatives may already be in the country installing the confusing, wildly inaccurate touch-screen voting machines throughout the state in an effort to undermine the fall vote.
Officials first got wind of the al-Qaeda plot weeks ago, when they attempted to use the touch-screen machines and found that the onscreen instructions were far too confusing to allow an average voter to register his or her vote properly.
"It was very clear that whoever wrote the instructions was not from this country," one official said.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge called the latest information "sobering" and said the only way to counteract the al-Qaeda plot would be by postponing the fall elections "indefinitely."
Mr. Ridge said that postponing elections in the U.S. would set a positive example for both Iraq and Afghanistan by demonstrating that in a democracy, elections can be successfully postponed.
The only possible alternative to such a postponement, Mr. Ridge said, would be for voters on Election Day to wrap themselves in duct tape and plastic sheeting until any al-Qaeda threat had passed.
He added that he was not playing politics with his latest pronouncements, telling reporters, "We don't do politics at the Department of Homeland Security - that's the Supreme Court's job."
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Jim Devine