Electoral College tie could be mother of all messes, quoth Reuters via CNN.

Nathan Ritchey, a Youngstown State University mathematician, calculates there’s a 3.25 percent chance of a 269-269 tie in the electoral college. The odds have increased since late summer.

“Looking at the 10 closest states, there are 17 ways this can occur — 17 out of 1,024 possible outcomes,” said Ritchey, who has been tracking statistics in this year’s contest between Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

The odds of a tie fluctuates as states move on and off the “battleground” list according to the latest polls. After all, nobody a few months ago saw states like Hawaii, with four electoral votes, or Colorado, with nine, to be in play.

As recently as August, chances for a tie were only 1.4 percent, said Ritchey.

seriously? that would tickle me pink. (and i don’t mean just the hair. the hair’s red, and it’s staying this way for a little while.)

the weird thing is that the closer we get to election day, the less and less i’m caring about my individual act of voting, or even really how it all turns out. it’s sort of annoying, because i care about a lot of issues, and i disagree with bush’s stance on many of issues. it’s just — it’s like i’m exhausted from the past several years of caring so much about every piddly little thing, so now i have no energy left to care about anything at all anymore.

don’t get me wrong, i’m still going to go vote on tuesday. just don’t blame me if i’m more interested in the web that some industrious little spider built between my miniblinds and my asparagus fern than about anything political for the next week or so.

and you know, i would like to be able to psyche myself up by saying things like, “less than a week and it’s all over!” or “only four days left to endure!” but it’s not true at all. no matter who wins, all the whiny brats will be out in force and i’ll still have to put up with their shit. if kerry wins, then it’ll be the “right wingnuts” harping on about doom and the “loony liberal left” chortling and lording it over them. if bush wins, it’ll be the other way around. there’s not really much of a role for ordinary people, or people who would like to be nice to each other despite differences. or, fuck, people who would like to be able to discuss politics without acting like a bratty thirteen-year-old.

and so that’s why it would tickle me pink if the electoral college tied and we ended up with a bipartisan administration. everyone would be confused, and at least it’d be a change of pace in terms of what nastiness got spewed. it’d be a different story indeed if you had your party involved up there with what the other party is fucking up, w’dnit? yeah. TIE TIE TIE! GO, TIE!