5 Year Old Wins Nobel Peace Prize

[Magical]

(AP) Seattle Wa.

Five year old, A.B. Countem was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for devising a fool-proof method of selecting between 2 candidates in the U.S. presidential election. When interviewed yesterday, he had this to say.

"It just baffled me how it could be so hard to select between 2 people for president. I went to bed thinking about it and just woke up with the solution in my head."

When asked what the miracle solution was to this interminable problem, he replied, "You give the voter a choice between A or B and then count them. I suppose it might have come to me, because of my name, but I'm still not sure WHY a country that can put a man on the moon, explore the deepest parts of space and solve the riddle of the atom, couldn't figure it out."

"You see, you make your choice, and it is verified and counted BEFORE you leave the voting booth (NO spoiled ballots) and you are given a receipt with a secret code that you can later verify your vote is in the total of the master vote database, said A.B."

Asked how he was going to spend the one million dollar award for the Nobel Peace Prize, A.B. said, "I think I am going to work on a way to teach grown ups that if they destroy our Mother Earth in the name of greed, we won't have a place to live."

[alevensalor]

1. Sweet

:kick:

[donachiel]

2. Out of the mouths of babes.

Thanks for the smile.

[dave502d]

3. Nice.n/t

[delete_bush]

4. I say amend the Constitution to allow

the foreign born and 5 year olds to run for President. This kid would clean the Gropenators clock!

[krkaufman]

5. Fast forward 13 years...

A.B. Countem, the creator of our current system of voting, was killed shortly after casting his first vote in an election, when members of a local Republican street gang, The Oxycontins, beat Mr Countem to death due to Mr Countem's having voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate.

Ironically, it was Mr Countem's design of a coded receipt that allowed the street gang to verify Mr Countem's vote for the Democratic candidate, something that would have been impossible with the previous system of secret balloting.

[harmonyguy]

6. Cute - but sounds like a promo ad for YABB - yet another black box.

With all due respect to the mythical A.B., just because it's in the master database doesn't mean it counted the way it was meant to.

There are lots of black boxes with the votes and totals supposedly in the database, but still we're getting crap for output.

Why do voters need secret codes to verify their choice? They need to be able to be sure that the mark they put on their ballot gets accurately counted.

To the youngster I'd say that five year olds enjoy playing with neat toys and things like secret-codes, because secrets make them feel special or more important than others. When you get a bit older, hopefully you'll understand the importance of fairness, and that secrets tend to be unfair because they exclude people.

Voting is a very important thing, which is why only grown-ups can do it. Counting the votes is also a very important thing, which is also why only grown-ups can do it. Secret codes are all-right for kids to play with, but we really want as many people as possible to feel included in what are THEIR choices. That's why today, after this election, so many grown-ups are upset - some of the people counting the votes used machines that made the counting happen in secret, and because of that they feel excluded.

As you can tell, some kids grew up and never learned to understand the importance of fairness. Perhaps you'll take your new-found wealth and use it to help all your friends learn about fairness too?

(Are you sure A. B.'s initials aren't V.H.?)