licentious radio

Wednesday, March 20, 2002
[2:51:40 PM]

Palo Alto, CA -- Carly Fiorina announced she had won the election, and HP will merge with Compaq.

ABC News was the first to call the election at 7:20 pm, followed shortly by Fox and CBS. By 8:15, however, they uncalled the election, saying it was too close to call, after all.

On a dubious note, HP's rules for the election barred convicted felons from voting. HP's board of directors contracted with DBT Online to create a "scrub-list" of names of stockholders similar to felons.

For example, according to the scrub list, one "Waller Hewlitt" was convicted of sleeping on a park bench in 1956, and "David E. Packerd" was convicted of murder in in 1992. The similarity in names prevented the votes controlled by HP heirs Walter Hewlett and David Packard from counting in the election, thus insuring Fiorina's victory.

Fiorina said the $4.3 million paid to DBT Online was worth every penny: "It would be unthinkable to let even one convicted felon slip through and be counted." Though the contract called for DBT Online to verify that the people barred from voting were actually felons, HP's board instructed DBT verbally not to waste time making the checks.

While there was some grumbling about votes not being counted, Fiorina said, "The election is over, and the American people want to move on. I won. These whiners should just get over it."