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"We've had some pretty bad Popes in history, but I can't help thinking that, if we elected a US President by locking 117 old men in a church under a fresco of the Last Judgement and telling them not to come out until they'd elected someone with a 2/3rds majority ...

... we would have done better than Barack Obama."

I think you are right.

I also think that if we turn back again to look at the Papal Conclave to elect the Pope in that same light, when we at last see the white smoke again, I do not think we will find more than 117 ballots in the ballot box (so to speak), or find any ballots with the name "Cardinal Bluejay" on it, or "Cardinal Tweetiebird", or "Cardinal Bigbird", or "Cardinal Rocking-robin", or "Cardinal Ordinal", or "Cardinal Daffyduck"...

And I don't think we will find that thousands of Cardinals voted early, or that many extra boxes of Cardinal votes will be found long after the voting has ceased, or hundreds of absentee Cardinal ballots are being shipped in from all over the world.

However, I would not be completely surprised to find that Cardinal Mahoney voted for Barack Obama to be the next Pope.