WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 12: Denials and denunciations, novel terminology, a new cast of characters and a fresh crop of jokes emerged from the unprecedented US Presidential election as Americans went into the weekend not knowing who will be their next Chief Executive.``I had a nightmare last night. Some space aliens came down to Earth and asked me to take them to our leader. I didn't know what to do!'' late-night comic Jay Leno joked, reflecting the popular `What Now?' mood following the controversial polls.At ground zero over in Florida, officials from both the Democratic and Republican parties engaged in a testy ballot-by-ballot count and dispute amid an evolving electoral nomenclature that began with `butterfly ballot'. At the heart of the dispute now is the confetti that falls when a paper is punched (for which the right word is `chad' and not shard, asreported yesterday). Chad is a term from the 1950s when punch cards were used to feed data to computers.Officials argued about what kind of chad counts in the counting process. A `pregnant chad', which is just a bulge that emerges when a voter punches the ballot but makes no perforation or home? Or a hanging chad, where the voter has made a perforation, but the rectangular chad is still attached to the ballot by a thread of paper? Are counters allowed to blow the chad away? Orbreathe hard before it?County board officials issued the following breathless rules on chads: Hanging chad (one corner of the rectangle still attached to the ballot): the vote counts; Swinging chad (two corners attached): vote counts; Tri-chad (three corners attached): vote counts; Pregnant (also known as dimple) chad (Punched but no corners broken): vote does not count.Then, amid raucous disputes between Democrat and Republican observers (in turn observed by the media peering into an all-glass fishbowl), officialsclarified the sunshine rule: A punched card with a pregnant chad through which light shines does not as a vote count.Scrambling in the fishbowl was Kartik Krishnaiyer, an Indian-American Democratic Party observer lending more colour to an election where many minorities have complained of being disenfranchised. A political consultant in Palm Beach County, Krishnaiyer was quoted by the local media as saying said that after half of one precinct was counted while he was there,Gore had picked up 30 votes and Bush 19, a net gain of 11 votes for Gore.That led to officials declaring that all the votes in Palm Beach country would be handcounted, a process that may take days. Bush supporters moved federal courts to stop this while readying to challenge close elections in other states.While pundits were surcharged on the issue of chad, punsters diluted the gravitas with a riotous show of jokes and skits as Americans tried to sit back and enjoy the spectacle over the weekend. The inimitable Saturday Night Live pilloried Gore and Bush, showing them sharing the Presidency and fighting over everything in the White House.Elsewhere, columnists joked about Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, Indonesia and Peru sending observers to monitor the US elections.``What is wrong with this country? We used to win wars, fight disease and send men to the moon, now we can't even punch a hole on a ballot!'' Leno joked, saying America is suffering from ``electile dysfunction''.Outside George Bush's ranch in Waco, his supporters held up placards that read `Texans Can Count'.But stand-up comics skewered the candidate whose intellectual limitation has been fodder to them. ``The Gore campaign has requested that the votes in Florida be counted by hand next. George W. Bush said, `How will that work? You'll run out of fingers!'' joked Conan O'Brien.``The winner of the election will be the candidate who wins the Electoral College vote. This has George W. Bush nervous. Electoral College, anything with college in it, gets Bush nervous,'' sneered David Letterman.Bush remained at his ranch in Texas plotting strategy while Gore stayed in his official Washington residence near the Naval Observatory. The Clintons left for Vietnam on an official tour.Constitutional experts riffled through laws and explained that should there be no decision on the President and Vice-President by January 20, third inthe line of succession will be the Speaker, in this case a little known Republican named Dennis Hastert. Late-night humour * A resident of Florida washed up in Cuba looking for Democracy.* The election comes down to the state of Florida. Florida hasn't been this nervous since O.J. Simpson moved there.* The whole world is watching the election, people all over the world are getting nervous. The Chinese don't know who to writ their cheques to anymore!* George W. Bush really doesn't care. This just gives him time to sober up before the victory speech.
