Elections Commissions introduces ‘foolproof’ voter-marking system

By Aishath Antenna

After going into a collective huddle following reports by various parties that the indelible marker used by the Elections Commission officials during the October 8th elections did not work as expected, the Elections Commission has finally emerged to reveal their brilliant solution to the dilemma.

At a special demonstration arranged especially for the benefit of Bakhabaru reporters, Elections Commission Vice President Ahmed Shahid said that they were currently testing the new ‘special ink’ which they had procured from some tar pits in India.

“We have received many reports that the markers that we brought from UK didn’t work quite exactly as we had expected,” Shahid said displaying his thumb which… well, which wasn’t there anymore. “There were some side effects, as you can see. Many people complained that when they tried to rub out the mark on their finger, the ink faded away but it also took the thumb with it! So immediately after the first round of voting, we started searching for an alternative solution.”

Shahid said that the whole point of putting a mark on the person’s finger was to identify those who had voted and to keep them from voting again and again.

“But if the mark faded away, along with the thumb, then it raised more problems than it solved,” he said. “Opposable thumbs are important. What am I going to suck on when I go to sleep at night now? Anyway, we deliberated cutting off the thumb of those who voted and reattaching them later but that seemed like too much of a hassle too. Besides, what if there was a mix-up? I don’t want someone else’s thumb on my hand! And with the voter list we have that sort of mix-up is quite probably. Hence, after much consideration among our fellow peers, this is what we plan to do!”

He proceeded to a pit about four to five feet deep filled with the new ink from India.

“We call this… the Pit of--” began Shahid but was interrupted in mid dramatic pose by Bakhabaru reporter Mohamed Headset, who had only recently recovered after lapsing into a months-long coma while watching Nahula’s latest movie.

“Despair? Eternity? Darkness?” shouted Headset, leaping forward.

“What? No!” said Shahid. “That’s so melodramatic. We call it ‘The Pit of Ink’. So who wants to volunteer as a test subject?”

Bakhabaru reporters are always willing and eager to try out new things and there’s no reporter quite as willing or eager as an excited Headset.

Upon volunteering, he was promptly pushed into the pit. He disappeared into the ink with a small ‘gloop!” sound.

When he finally emerged from the ink pit, looking like something out of ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’, Shahid began the exposition: “As you can see, what we are suggesting here is completely foolproof. There is no way that any person can wash off this amount of indelible muck, er… ink within a day. Therefore, from the moment you vote till voting is over, anyone who is not blind, and even some who are, will notice the ink on the person, not to mention the stench, and therefore deduce that the person has already voted. It’s foolproof! Stay away from me, Mr. Headset. I don’t want that gunk on me. It stinks!”

Immediately after the demonstration Elections Commission officials were seen venturing out with shovels and barrels of indelible ink towards proposed polling stations. Earlier in the week, the Elections Commission had announced that they were going to get voters to dunk an entire finger into the indelible ink bottle as a way to mark those who had voted. The latest development, dunking the entire person into the ‘bottle’, seems to be an advancement of that method.