Joe Wos wins landslide victory in election

I’m not even going to bother writing a summary for this story. It’s as good as it gets by itself. All I can say is, “congratulations to Joe and I can’t wait to see you skewered by Rob Rogers.”

Joe Wos, cartoonist, storyteller, executive director of the ToonSeum and producer of Dr. Sketchy Pittsburgh can add another title to the list as the newly elected Judge of Election for Penn Hills District 1.

Wos won by one write-in vote. His own.

Wos, who has voted in every election since he was 18, proceeded as usual Nov. 3, voting for deceased comedian Pat Paulsen instead of less appealing candidates and writing himself in where no candidate was present.

Only this time it backfired, or paid off, depending on how you look at it.

The new Judge of Election issued the following statement:

“I would like to thank me, without whom I would not be here today.

This historic landside election, with me winning 100 percent of the vote is clearly a mandate from the people, but mostly from me.”

This is not Wos’ first venture into politics. He served as Pittsburgh campaign coordinator for comedian Pat Paulsen’s presidential campaign in 1996.Wos is registered as an Independent, specifically the Bull Moose Party.

“While I do not suspect voter fraud at this time, my first endeavor as the newly elected Judge of Election will be to look into whether or not I should be formally elected once I am elected,” Wos said.

Wos wondered why it took more than a month to tally the vote for Judge of Election: “Were there multiple recounts? How many times do you have to count to one before you are sure it’s one?”

There apparently was no involvement of either Al Gore or the state of Florida in the delay.

Wos has made several campaign promises to himself, including a call for Plum Borough Mayor Richard Hrivnak to “Bring down that wall!” Wos was unclear on what wall, saying “surely there must be some wall that needs to be torn down in Plum Borough.”

Other campaign promises include:

= Casual voter Friday, in which voters can show up wearing Bermuda shorts on any election held on a Friday.

= An effort to reunite the warring South and North Dakota into one united Dakota.

= And a three-year plan to turn around the economy in the next five years.

These are ambitious goals for an office with no powers whatsoever.

Wos’ duties include making sure to plug in the coffeemaker on the morning of Election Day and unplugging it at night.

Clearly, this is just the beginning of his political aspirations as Mr. Wos was quoted as saying,”Clearly, this is just the beginning of my political aspirations,”

“I would like to work my way up to dogcatcher or perhaps ambassador to some country where I wont do any harm, like Arkansas. I should probably brush up on my geography as well.” Wos said.

While Wos may have written in his name as a joke, he is taking the job very seriously and is hoping to be mocked and ridiculed by local editorial cartoonists.

“I hope to be a role model to young people with moderately reasonable expectations of low-level public service,” Wos said. “This proves that anyone can grow up to be an underpaid, peripherally important member of our government, provided no one else wants the job and nobody votes.”

Wos expressed hope his victory will be a wakeup call to all those who stayed home Nov. 3.

“I am what happens when Americans don’t vote!” he heralded.