Central Bank warns public about defacing currency

The increasingly popular political practice of bribing voters with one half of a blue note has come under some serious criticism from the Central Bank. In a release today, the bank reminds the public that coins and bills that are mutilated, defaced or torn are not legal tender and will not be redeemed by authorities. It is not known whether the release was prompted by large numbers of deliberately cut notes showing up at the bank, but we have been reliably informed that several politicians in recent convention contests have offered voters one half of a hundred dollar bill as an inducement to vote for them. The way it works is that the candidate shows the voters the intact note, then tears it in half, giving one side to the voter and keeping the other half for himself. The voter is then told that if the candidate wins, the voter can return for the other half. Since the serial number of the bill is printed on each side of the queen’s picture, it is no problem to match the two pieces after the election. To find out more we spoke to Central Bank Deputy Governor for Operations, Yvette Alvarez. While not commenting on the specific practice, she did point out that while the bank will accept a torn note that has been taped back together, the act of damaging the bill in the first place is in fact a crime. That could make some of our leading political figures potential criminals–but then again… that’s not very big news.