I love our country and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, but I think most of us would admit that election time – especially a presidential election – is just crazy. For instance, some people said they voted for Obama and the screen automatically switched to Romney, or vice versa. In some voting venues, mysterious “Please have a photo ID ready” signs showed up, even though photo IDs were not required. Some people were concerned that the deceased may be casting votes and some Florida results are still not clear – almost a week after the elections.
But, I heard the craziest story today. In my Sunday school class, we’ve been talking about creation versus evolution. Today, I learned that Charles Darwin got 4,000 write-in votes in a Georgia Congress race.
Now, in case you don’t know, Darwin was a British nineteenth century naturalist who came up with the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution ticks off many Christians, who find it contrary to what the Bible says about the creation story. And, that is exactly the reason Darwin received write-in votes in the recent election, 130 years after his death.
Republican candidate Paul Broun was running unopposed, but some people in Athens-Clarke County wanted to teach him a lesson – that even those unopposed can have threats in our election system. The push for Darwin votes was promoted by Jim Leebens-Mack, a plant biology professor at the University of Georgia. He and many others were angered because Broun has been quoted as saying evolution and other scientific theories are “lies straight from the pit of hell.”
Overall, Darwin didn’t have much of a chance. Broun got over 200,000 votes statewide, enough for re-election, but in Athens-Clarke County, he only got 16,980, making Darwin’s 4,000 votes much more impressive. However, since Darwin is dead, the votes won’t count.
Still, the fact that so many people in one county voted for a dead guy over the current Congressman hopefully sent a message.