JUNEAU, AK—State election authorities filed an urgent injunction Thursday, warning a federal judge that the executive branch’s demand to set aside Senate ballots would require physically relocating the entire landmass of Alaska three inches to the left. The filing responded to federal petitions seeking the immediate isolation of all voting materials cast during the recent midterms.
A Tectonic Challenge
Attorneys for the state argued that the demand to set aside Senate ballots creates unprecedented logistical hurdles. "We simply do not have the shelf space," said Arlo Vance, Deputy Director of the Alaska Department of Bureaucratic Logistics. Vance noted that physical law prevents the state from sequestering paper ballots without altering local ocean currents. "If we stack these boxes in Anchorage, the entire Kenai Peninsula will tip into the Pacific Ocean," Vance added.
Federal officials reportedly demanded the quarantine following claims of widespread administrative anomalies. However, local election workers noted that paper forms in the sub-zero tundra routinely freeze together into solid paper-mâché blocks. Moving the blocks would require heavy mining equipment currently reserved for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
Unprecedented Mechanical Strain
Experts outside government also weighed in on the structural dangers of the directive. "You cannot just shove that much heavy cardstock into a single corner of the continent," said Rusty Calhoun, retired stadium acoustician and founder of Dads Against Bass. "The acoustic resonance of three hundred thousand paper ballots vibrating in the Arctic wind will blow out every subwoofer from Juneau to Fairbanks."
State workers have already tried placing the documents inside empty shipping containers near the Yukon border. However, local wildlife immediately claimed the containers as insulated hibernation dens. Officials confirmed that retrieval would violate federal bear preservation guidelines.
At press time, state clerks were attempting to fulfill the demand to set aside Senate ballots by throwing them directly into a deep glacier crevasse while claiming they were securely archived.
