It appears Independent New Publisher Rick Outzen will not earn the coveted Tucson Weekly readers’ endorsement for his presidential bid in Arizona.

However, the Tucson Weekly reports an electronic voting glitch that caused the software tabulating votes in the Tucson Weekly Readers Endorsement race to close an hour ahead of schedule.

The so-called DST Bug, which evidently failed to account for Arizona’s refusal to participate in Daylight Savings Time, shut down voting at 11 a.m. Tuesday morning instead of noon.

This caused Outzen the loss of at least four votes when he pleaded with the “Outzen women” to finally cast their votes for him in an effort to win the first round of voting for the Republican endorsement.

But TW’s Project White House headquarters reports: “The precise impact is unknown, but millions of voters nationwide may have been disenfranchised by the malfunction.”

Nonetheless, the last time Outzen presidential headquarters checked, Outzen trailed Tucson Republican Chuck Skelley 55.6 percent to 44.4 percent. The day before polls closed Outzen trailed 67 percent to 33 percent, so was coming on strong.

Apparently, Outzen’s promise that he was more slow and lazy than Fred Thompson and crazier and more unbalanced than Ron Paul, other Republican presidential candidates, didn’t fly. Neither did his campaign promise to draw the U.S. borders with extra thick markers on new maps to show America is serious about immigration.

Still, Outzen remained upbeat, saying: “I didn’t want those Left Wing TW nuts’ votes anyway. I’m still on the Arizona ballot and I still intend to win.”

Yessiree.