‘Former U.S. president George W. Bush accidentally voted for Barack Obama today at a polling place near his Crawford, TX home.

According to local reports, the two-term Republican was confused by the instructions on his electronic voting machine and mistakenly cast a ballot he intended to discard.

Witnesses say Bush argued with poll workers for several minutes afterwards in a effort to redo his vote, but in accordance with state law they ultimately denied his request.

The embarrassing incident may have gone unnoticed if it weren't for a local newspaper reporter who happened to be voting in the next booth. Suzanna Everett, a politics correspondent for the Waco Times witnessed the entire ordeal and crafted a cunning scheme to make it public.

Left On Red

Barred by ethics rules from using knowledge gained within a polling station, Everett waited for Bush to leave the facility and ambushed him with a trick question designed to fool him into revealing the news himself:

"Mr. President Fox News is reporting that you've accidentally voted for Barack Obama. Would you care to comment?"

Thinking that his mistake had already been found out, Bush sought to minimize the damage:

"Yes unfortunately because of the incompetence of the folks who designed the ballot, my vote counted for the other guy," Bush responded. He then attempted to explain exactly how the mishap occurred:

"First of all, everything was very mismaladjusted on the screen. You shouldn't put the senators and the congresspeople and the presidents all jumbled together like that. It's too crowded. Just confuses folks."

Bush then explained that after marking the wrong candidate, he sought to correct his error by clicking the red "Cast Ballot" button, thinking that it was designed to 'cast away' the ballot and bring up a fresh one:

"Usually red means stop and green means go. I thought I was stopping"…’