Florida Man Swaps Ballots for Stereo

Weston Cann

TALLAHASSEE, FL — Adding further uncertainty to the already tumultuous election proceedings, officials yesterday called into question the actions of vote-counter David Silverman.

Silverman, 38, was apparently in the process of feeding boxes of votes into a counting machine last week when he discovered one box contained not ballots but a three-disc CD player. He allegedly took it home and used it to play Air Supply's Greatest Hits, Abba's Voulez-Vous, and Billy Joel's Glass Houses — and refused his son the opportunity to play a newly purchased Filter CD.

The stereo apparently rightly belonged to Matt Walker, 20, of the same voting district. He discovered it was missing when he "finally got around to opening the box" early this week and found nothing but 986 ballots.

"Yeah, I went to Wal-Mart right before I went to vote — I'd been wanting this thing for months and I finally got a raise and an approval for one of those 0% Aria Visas," said Walker. "When I finally got the new U2 album this week, I went to set up the stereo, and whoa! I spent a lot of money on that thing. I guess I set it down next to the ballots when I went to punch my ticket. I must've grabbed the wrong box."

Election officials came down hard on Silverman for failing to report this "voting irregularity."

"We're very disappointed to find that Silverman failed to report this voting irregularity," said Wayne Gershet, county secretary.

"I mean, yeah," said Walker, "before I contacted anybody, it looked like he was just going to keep the thing."

Silverman defended his actions, saying he intended to return it, but had been quite busy over the last two weeks. He promptly surrendered the stereo when contacted on Tuesday, after Walker reported the incident. Silverman said he is now considering buying a three-disc CD player of his own.