Control of Congress to Be Announced Sometime During the Late Cenozoic Era, Officials Say

In an inspiring triumph of nineteenth-century logistics over fiber-optic infrastructure, federal authorities announced Tuesday that the rightful leaders of the free world should be determined just in time for the sun to engulf the solar system. Election clerks across Arizona, California, and Maine have reportedly retreated to remote limestone caves to decipher mail-in ballots by candlelight, taking painstaking care to ensure no precinct advances faster than the drift of continental plates. "Democracy isn’t a sprint; it’s an agonizing, multi-generational saga wherein your great-grandchildren will inherit your provisional ballot like a piece of distressed family heirloom," explained Maricopa County Chief Registrar Harold Vance, gently blowing dust off an absentee envelope with antique jeweler's bellows. Alaska, meanwhile, reported a sudden three-week blackout after the state's sole official counting caribou stopped to lick road salt off an oil drum. In response, cable news networks have begun training their holographic anchors to analyze Maricopa voter turnout straight through the next ice age.