Vote For Padre Pio

Status: Joke ballot
Reuters reports on a case of a dead guy who was temporarily in the running for Italy's president:
With no hope of immediately electing a president, lawmakers have been throwing away votes for the past two days while party leaders negotiate a consensus candidate. A secret ballot has allowed them to get creative. For one elector, the political deadlock offered a rare chance to vote for Padre Pio, a 20th century mystic monk who had the stigmata -- bleeding wounds in the hands and feet similar to those of Christ -- and was made a saint in 2002. The speaker of Italy's lower house of parliament immediately annulled the ballot paper. Padre Pio died in 1968.
For a second I thought this was some kind of allusion to Napoleon Dynamite. But that's Vote for Pedro, not Vote for Padre Pio. The similarity is coincidental, I'm sure. (Thanks to Big Gary, who has a knack for finding these 'dead guy running for office' stories.)

Related Post:
Apr. 9, 2006: Dead man runs for New Orleans Mayor

Death Politics

Posted on Tue May 09, 2006


Comments

Guess dead politicians are better than alive ones??

prayukth.freeservers.com
Posted by Prayukth  on  Wed May 10, 2006  at  02:46 AM
Padre Pio actually was one of the most famous of people with stigmata of more modern times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padre_Pio
Posted by LaMa  on  Wed May 10, 2006  at  07:51 AM
The name "Pedro" is the Spanish equivalent of "Peter", both of which are from the same Indo-European root word that means "stone".

"Padre" is Italian for father, and comes from the Latin "Pater".
Posted by BugbearSloth  on  Wed May 10, 2006  at  08:50 AM
This guy turns up in the most random places...
Posted by Owen  on  Wed May 10, 2006  at  11:43 AM
You may also know him as Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Posted by Easyl  on  Mon May 15, 2006  at  07:42 AM
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