The Real Vote in District 18

So the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee has picked the next delegate. Activists are already running wild, yelling, “It’s undemocratic! The people were not able to vote!”

Say what? Of course the people could vote. Right here, on the Maryland Politics Watch Internet poll. Hey, what the state constitution takes away, we give back to you. Maryland Politics Watch is the REAL home of democracy.

So what if the Internet poll was imperfect? So what if we failed to check for legal residency. Or District 18 residency. Or Planet Earth residency. It was a vote! And voting is our civic duty, right? You betcha hanging chads it is!

Here’s a secret: the Internet poll allowed multiple votes from the same computer. It wasn’t supposed to, but it did. How do I know this? I’m not telling. It’s not like I pushed the button more than once.

What was that you said? You only voted once? Heh heh.

I can just imagine the scenes at the competing campaign headquarters. Al Carr, yelling at the other Town of Kensington council members, “Keep pushing those buttons! We’ve gotta stay ahead!” And Hugh Bailey (Roz Pelles’s son) looming over a team of button pushers, bellowing, “We can take those guys! Click faster!” Maybe the reports of those people running up and down Connecticut Avenue looking for extra keyboards and mice are related to all this.

I’ll say one thing for our Internet poll: there were more votes on there than in a “real” District 18 election. And you say we can’t figure out how to boost voter turnout!

Well, the race is over now. The losing candidates are already filing appeals with the Board of Elections. But we here at Maryland Politics Watch are moving on. It’s time to set up a new Internet poll for 2010. It’s never too early to start voting, you know!

I’ll bet we get more Internet poll votes than the entire population of Pennsylvania.