You're going to love this!

From the National Archives comes this image of the official Electoral College certificate from the State of New York. Note the name given for the man for whom New York's Electors cast their ballots: John L. Kerry. You'd think they would get that straight before they sent it in!

That will probably rate a footnote in the minutes of the joint session of Congress, over which Dick Cheney will preside, where he shall open all those ballots. For everyone's information: The Electoral College imposes no restrictions on "who is on the ballot." Therefore, as far as the Electoral College is concerned, individual Electors may vote for whomsoever they please, as their conscience or any applicable State statutes direct. The only time to challenge this will be in that joint session, and it will take one or more members of the House and Senate to file a written objection.

Given the current make-up of the Electoral College, this will not matter. But now let us suppose that Ohio reverses the election of Electors and sends twenty Electors to re-vote for Kerry instead of Bush. (Or let us assume that Ohio's Democratic House delegation finds a willing Senator to object in writing to the votes as cast, and the objection is, by some miracle, sustained.) What then? With thirty-one electoral votes going to the fictitious John L. Kerry, the election for President will be thrown to the House of Representatives, which will vote State by State. And guess what: it will be the new House, not the current one, that will vote on this. Either way, Bush's re-election is all but assured. (That, unfortunately, does not go for Cheney. None of the electoral voting mistakes affect Edwards in any way, shape or form--so far.)

Indeed, this is not the only mistake that a Presidential Elector has made! My colleague Tim Thornton over at C-POL (who also tipped me to New York's mistake) reports that an Elector from Minnesota mis-cast his Presidential vote for John Edwards! He got the two candidates named John mixed up in his head. (Here's the Certificate of Vote! And look at this: John Edwards gets a vote for President and for Vice-President!)

Folks, you can't make this stuff up. If anyone tried to make a political thriller of an election that turned on such mistakes, I don't know of a single Hollywood producer who would dare finance it--nor a single New York acquisitions editor who would dare accept it. But this is enough to make one wonder--what if God is so Determined to return Bush to office that He confounds even the counsels of various delegations to the Electoral College?

UPDATE: From NewsMax.com comes this report that the New York delegation knows what they did wrong and are rushing out with corrected copies of the certificate-of-vote. Uh, huh--so they're taking a Mulligan. Would a Red State get the same privilege? So save the above-linked image while you can--it's a keeper.