Stephen Colbert actually wins an election

Well, sort of.

In my old college town of Williamsburg, Va., the "Colonial Capital" where I spent four rainy memorable years amongst the knee breeches and pancake houses, Stephen Colbert received three write-in votes for a seat on the Colonial Soil and Water Conservation District Board. He therefore tied for the second elected position of two up for grabs, with two College of William and Mary students. (No word on whether W&M being the alma mater of Colbert's pal Jon Stewart had anything to do with the election outcome ...)

According to city ordinance, the election now goes to the tie-breaker procedure: the winner's name will be drawn from a hat (presumably not a tricornered hat, but one never knows). However, Colbert will not be part of the drawing, because he's not a registered voter in the city of Williamburg.

Matt Beato, a 20-year-old government major, and Benjamin Strahs, a computer science and math major, collected three write-in votes. So did Colbert. And those votes were tied for the second elected spot.

[...]

Neither Strahs nor Colbert could be reached for comment, but Beato, who chairs the college's student assembly senate, expressed a concern that was echoed across the region last week when voters faced ballots with uncontested races.

"I'm not crazy, but any nut case could win with three votes," Beato said. "Somebody should make sure that doesn't happen."

As a government major, which I was as well, I hope Beato has learned an important lesson: just as three votes can elect a nutcase, so can 62,040,610.