Tacoma News Tribune wants you to rank your choices!

Bloggers note: While it is true that the News Tribune is asking readers to rank news stories, the rest of this piece is a spoof.

The Tacoma News Tribune asks you to "Click on the ballot, rank your top 10 and click 'submit'."

The readers of the News Tribune are being asked to rank the year's top news stories with only 11 words of voter education! This huge underinvestment in voter education has come at a cost.

A phone bank has been set up and all Christmas vacation at the News Tribune has been cancelled to deal with the massive number of phone calls to the office asking for assistance in how fill out the ballot.

The News Tribune will be publishing a twenty-five page explanatory insert in Sunday's paper to help its readers with ranking the top news stories in Pierce County. TV and radio ads will start on Monday with Dave Seago and Dave Zeeck giving demonstrations on how to fill out your ballot.

The Democrats and Republicans are VERY concerned that voters will be confused by so many stories on the ballot. The two major parties announced that the debates on this subject should be limited to just two stories since voters would be confused by seeing any more stories represented in the debate.

The Greens demanded to know why global warming, endangered species and a monorail to Fox Island are not on the list of stories. Ron Paul supporters want to know why his campaign raising $6 million in one day isn't on the list of stories. The Libertarians want to know if the News Tribune received a government subsidy to do this survey.

Robert Hill wants to be able to vote for self-gratification as a top 10 news story. Calvin Goings has put up a sign on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge announcing his plan to be the winning story in 2008!

Asking readers to rank stories will confuse voters no end. We suggest they delay implementation until 2010.

Happy Holidays.