Irrelevant News #1

St. Louis Blues rookie T.J. Oshie was the subject of a blog recently called "Vote 4 Oshie." Basically, despite the fact that Oshie is 22 and clearly does not have the credentials to be mayor of St. Louis, some hardcore fans still gathered their collective selves and set out to write-in Oshie on the mayoral ballot. Well, the election was last Tuesday, and as you would probably expect, Oshie fell a few votes short of victory.

But there's more. One overzealous fan (still unidentified) from O'Fallon, MO decided that he was going to write in Oshie for HIS town's mayoral election, take a picture of himself with his Oshie ballot, and post it on the Vote 4 Oshie blog. Apparently this was a very poor idea, since in the state of Missouri, willfully sharing the contents of your ballot is a "class-four election offense," meaning this fan could face up to a year in jail along with a $2,500 fine.

Well that's all fine and dandy, but this guy was just joking around. He won't actually be arraigned for this, will he? Well it turns out that the county elections director decided to be a Grade A D-Bag and go after this guy for having some harmless fun. From the Post-Dispatch:

"The Oshie voter "violated the law, and I'm going to prosecute," county elections director Rich A. Chrismer said. "They may have thought the photo was cute, but it was very serious.""

""You can't violate something as sacred as the ballot," Chrismer said. "People won't trust going to a polling place if they think somebody is walking around with a camera.""

wtf? Firstly, this is a mayoral election in O'FALLON, MO; I don't even know where the hell that is, and I doubt any of my readers do either. I'd guess around 32 people voted in this election. Also, by Missouri law, Oshie wouldn't even have been eligible to win the election because a) he is 22 b) he never declared his candidacy for mayor, a requirement for write-ins and c) he doesn't live in O'Fallon. So even if the Oshie voter influenced everyone to vote for Oshie with his picture, he still wouldn't be able to win. I understand that if this guy took a picture of himself with an actual candidate voted on his ballot, that he could influence others and swing the election the wrong way, but this pressing of charges here just doesn't make any sense to me. He was just having fun. Leave the poor guy alone!

UPDATE: The ballot itself!