Sometimes art imitates life imitating art.
Four years ago, around Election Day 2008, The Simpsons did an episode in which Homer's vote for Barack Obama was magically switched to John McCain every time he tried to press the president's name on an electronic voting machine. The episode was likely a riff off of reports that year that voters faced problems with the touch screens of voting machines.
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Today, NBC News confirmed that an electronic voting machine that similarly changed a Pennsylvania voter's choice from Barack Obama to Mitt Romney has now been taken offline. A clip of the faulty machine in action went viral after the voter posted it to YouTube earlier Tuesday.
The likeness between the two videos was noticed by former White House speechwriter Jon Lovett, who was once a wordsmith for Obama.
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Other TV shows have parodied the problems with electronic voting machines, of course. In the finale episode of last season's Parks & Recreation, which aired around primary voting time, an electronic voting machine offers a candy bar to the character Leslie if she switches her vote.
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Elizabeth Flock is a staff writer for U.S. News & World Report. You can follow her on Twitter or Facebook or reach her at eflock@usnews.com.
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