Hanging Chad

Sean Kennelly is challenging long-time congressman, Sterling Hancock, for his seat. With the help of Ursula Snipe, a brilliant mathematician, Sean enlists Sterling in a plan to limit the voters to a small, controllable group. Their plan works too well as the election hinges on only one voter – Chad.

Genre:            Comedy
Length:          Full-length stageplay
Cast:              4 male, 1 female
Awards:        Honorable Mention, 2007 McLaren Comedy Playwriting Festival

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Excerpt:

Sean:     Anyway, all this data is crunched through some big computer… right, Ursula?

Ursula:  Well, not technically a big computer but one with an enhanced Centrino…

Sean:     And the computer spits out the demographics of each area of the state – as precise as we need to slice it. Then we introduce the “Piss Off Plan.”

Howard:    “Piss Off Plan?”

Sean:     Make the people from this side of town vote on that side town, make the soccer moms vote during school pickup time, make the seniors vote during supermarket sales days… at night… across town!

Sterling;    That’ll do it!

Ursula:     We polled before our behavioral modification program and 65% of registered voters planned to vote.

Howard:    And now?

Ursula:  (tapping computer keys)   Thirty-one percent – plus or minus 2.38 percent.

Sterling:    Thirty-one percent is still a lot of people.

Sean:     Oh, we’re not done yet! We have seven more groups to piss off.

Ursula:    We still expect to have a target result set of twenty-two.

Sterling:   A what?

Sean:      We should have the twenty or so voters we promised by election day.

Sterling:   Wow! And I’m saving money at the same time.

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