Saturday Night Live Takes On Princess Nudelman

Princess the Goldfish, suburban Chicago's most famous ghost voter, hit prime time Thursday when Saturday Night Live's Amy Poehler joked about the story in a "Thursday Update" segment:

POEHLER: Election officials in Chicago's northern suburbs are trying to find out why voter registration was sent to Princess Nudelman, a goldfish. Oh, I don't know -- maybe because she has the world's most awesome goldfish name.

Watch the segment:

The Associated Press provides background on Princess Nudelman:

The only "agent of change" Princess ever supported was the person who freshened the water in her fishbowl. So election officials in Chicago's northern suburbs want to know why voter registration material was sent to the dead goldfish.

"I am just stunned at the level of people compromising the integrity of the voting process," said Lake County Clerk Willard Helander, a Republican, who said she has spotted problems with nearly 1,000 voter registrations this year.

Beth Nudelman, who owned the fish, said Princess may have landed on a mailing list because the family once filled in the pet's name when they got a second phone line for a computer.

"There was no fraud involved," said Nudelman, a Democrat who supports Barack Obama. "This person is a dead fish."

The paperwork sent to a "Princess Nudelman" likely came from the "Women's Voices, Women Vote" project, which sent nearly 1 million mailings to Illinois households in August using a list that mistakenly included some pets, said Sarah Johnson, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit group that encourages single women to vote.

A member of the Nudelman family offered their take in a comment on Progress Illinois.