Vote Now for the Stephen Colbert Bridge!

This is a funny story...

There's a contest to vote for the name of a bridge in Hungary. So Stephen Colbert of the "Colbert Report" urged his viewers to name it the Stephen Colbert hid (hid is bridge in Hungarian), after himself . The first phase of voting concluded with Stephen Colbert as the leader with over 17 million votes. In a distant 2nd place, the Nicholas Zrinski hid had 4 million votes. And the Chuck Norris hid was bumped from 1st to 5th. The funny thing is, Hungary only has a population of approximately 10 million.



Now they're asking people to vote in a second phase, for one of the 25 top choices so far. The Stephen Colbert hid currently leads the pack w/ 8000 votes, with the Jon Stewart hid trails in 2nd w/ 3000 votes. You can view the current tally here.

The truth is, this isn't the first time Colbert has rallied the blogosphere into a public prank. On the July 31st, 2006 episode concerning Wikipedia, Colbert made outrageous claims that "the population of elephants tripled in the last six months," causing many to alter elephant-related Wikipedia pages, which ultimately led to the temporary lockdown of all these pages.

Recently, Colbert provided a "Star Wars Kid"-like video of himself in front of a green screen. He proposed a contest to submit the best modimodified version of this video, complete w/ lightsaber effects and anything else the creator might like to include. Update: Here is a list of notable entries.

Honestly, I think this type of audience involvement creates a fun, inclusive form of entertainment. Just like how taking part in message boards, blogs and providing podcast feedback allow us to extend our voices further than tradional media outlets has allowed in the past, Tso too does this style of television. The fact that Stephen Colbert does a wonderful portrayal of Bill O'Reilly is also a plus.

So in order to join in on the action, use the link below to vote for the bridge, the Democratic way...

To vote, go here:
http://www.m0hid.gov.hu/

UPDATED! Phase II Voting instructions: Walk-through of the voting process

• Click on the "Regisztráció" link on the top left-hand corner of the page.
• Write in your email, and your password, and a repeat of the password (your password confirmation) in the three blank fields (IN THAT ORDER).
• In minutes, you get a mail with a confirmation link and your password. Click on the link included in the e-mail.
• When you click on the link in the e-mail, you will get redirected to the voting page.
• Type your e-mail in the E-mail cim field, and your password in the Jelsó field.
• Select the radial button by "Stephen Colbert híd" and click the Belépés button. You will be taken to a screen with the vote tallies. To vote again, click on the Kilépés button.
• "Belépések száma" means "Number of logins". It does appear that you can vote unlimited times, but you have to be registered to do so.
• "Összesen" on the bottom means "All votes", and the Toplista tally page seems to be working again if you would like to see the tally of all of the votes.
• And, in case you're wondering, yes the Colbert Nation has already found a way to cheat stuff the ballot box on this round of votes, too. But Colbert has requested (via the ColbertNation.com forums) that everyone play nice so that we don't block out all of the other people from around the world who might want to vote. In other words - don't cheat. Do it the long way.