Florida voting machine turns up in resident's yard (Palo Alto CA)!

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/11589231.htm

Surprise! It's a voting machine! Somehow, a Florida voting machine from the infamous hanging-chad presidential election of 2000 landed on a walkway outside John Harker's Palo Alto home Thursday morning.

``I was puzzled at first,'' Harker said Friday. ``I don't know why it was dumped on my property.'' Was it stolen? Had it dropped from the sky?

Harker's first instinct was to take the contraption to the dump. Instead, he carried the machine, which was folded into an aluminum case the size of an overnight suitcase, to the front desk of the Palo Alto Police Department. ``They told me when I left it that it would give them an afternoon's amusement,'' he said. Down in the windowless evidence room, evidence technician Brad Herran unfolded the voting machine Friday afternoon.

He found a sticker and some documents that surprised him. Officials in Palm Beach County, Florida, ground zero for hanging chads in the Bush-Gore fight, had apparently sold the old machines as historic souvenirs. It was true. The county sold 560 of them on eBay in late 2001. For $300, buyers received a voting machine, complete with the famously confusing butterfly ballot. Some buyers opted for the $600 package, which included a ballot box.

[iconoclastic cat]

1. Only $600? Hey, I wonder how much Bush paid for the whole election!

Sell out your country at low, low prices! Come'n get it!

[lpbk2713]

2. I'm sure it came with the Katherine Harris seal of approval.

Very likely it had been Tampa'd with.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

3. OUCH!

:evilgrin:

:toast: