Prank made officials rescind license plate design

The original winning license plate design was rescinded Friday by the Omaha Nebraska State officials and hoped to get the last laugh at the expense of a New York-based humor Web site.

The Department of Motor Vehicles and the Nebraska.gov was forced to decide and illuminate the embarrassing communicative deficiencies of the CollegeHumor.com pulled-off practical jokes and pranks ideas.

Though the humor site's attempt to sabotage the voting process by having its visitors vote for the "ugliest" design". Officials at Nebraska.gov originally told DMV officials that it only had a minimal impact on the overall tally.

A black and white design with Nebraska.gov in red letters got the most votes and was declared the winner earlier this week at an event featuring Gov. Dave Heineman and his staff.

CollegeHumor.com then declared a victory on its site, saying essentially, "We won." So the Nebraska Interactive, the company managing the state's Web site, and State officials then took a closer look at the numbers. They found that about 14,000 votes came from the New York site and 12,000 were cast for the black and white plate, which was deemed by the site to be the most boring design. "This is clear evidence the voting was compromised by the mischievous intentions of a third-party site," said DMV spokeswoman Beverly Neth.

DMV officials tossed out all votes that had come from the humor site and took full responsibility for the gaffe, and they weren't laughing despite those effort CollegeHumor.com editor who devised the prank offered no apologies. . The remaining votes tallied favored the plate featuring the state bird and the state flower, which will be the plate design adorning Nebraska vehicles in 2011.

"I think it was all in good fun. In the end it turned out OK. Maybe they had to work a little extra to discount those votes but the one that deserved to win ended up winning," said Kevin Corrigan.

The final, true tally included 32,727 votes for the Meadowlark and flower design and 28,302 votes for the black and white design. Officials now said they'll now think twice about using an online poll in the future.

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