A routine analysis of Election Day Google searches has uncovered something impossible: every time voters get confused about basic campaign facts, a defunct Canadian hamlet gets slightly more powerful.

It started when data scientists noticed an unusual pattern in “Did Joe Biden drop out” searches during the election. These searches, which peaked at precisely 3:47 PM EST, formed a perfect geometric pattern pointing directly to Monitor, Alberta (51°58′42″N 110°34′10″W) - a former village that technically stopped existing in 1946 but apparently forgot to tell the universe.

“At first we thought it was just a weird coincidence,” explains Dr. Sarah Chen, who heads the Advanced Voter Awareness Institute. “Then we realized Monitor’s 1946 dissolution from village to hamlet status had accidentally created a tear in North America’s information fabric. It’s like someone hit ‘unsubscribe’ on an entire town, and now reality keeps getting the spam anyway.”

The evidence is unsettling. Every time Monitor’s population changes, it creates what researchers call “Monitor Waves” - expanding rings of political confusion that cause people to momentarily forget who’s running for president. These waves follow the exact pattern of Alberta’s highway grid system, which itself was apparently designed by a civil engineer who was really into sacred geometry.

The situation reached critical mass during the recent election when Monitor’s current population of 60 people exactly matched the percentage of voters who briefly convinced themselves they had imagined the entire campaign. Several voting machines reportedly had existential crises, with one in Ohio displaying the message “But what if democracy is just, like, really complicated math?”

“The real problem,” warns political geographer Dr. James Martinez, “is that social media algorithms are particularly susceptible to Monitor’s influence. We’ve documented cases where Facebook’s recommendation engine suddenly decided that election news should only be shown to users who are standing at precise 90-degree angles to Alberta.”

The research team has discovered that Monitor’s influence grows stronger every time someone forgets it exists, which is approximately every eight minutes. This creates a feedback loop where the more people don’t think about Monitor, Alberta, the more powerful it becomes at making people not think about other things, like who they’re supposed to vote for.

Proposed solutions have ranged from practical to desperate. One suggestion involves officially reinstating Monitor’s village status, but computer models indicate this might cause voters to remember future elections that haven’t happened yet. Another plan to neutralize Monitor’s influence by building an identical town at exactly opposite coordinates was abandoned when researchers realized this would technically be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

For now, election officials are being trained to watch for signs of Monitor Wave interference, particularly in areas where voters seem unusually preoccupied with Canadian administrative classifications. Officials are also advised to ensure voting machines remain at non-mystical angles to Alberta’s highway system.

“The good news,” says Dr. Chen, “is that being aware of Monitor’s influence seems to provide temporary immunity. The bad news is that we’re pretty sure Monitor knows we know, and it’s not happy about it. Last week, three of our researchers suddenly became convinced they were actually highway intersections in Saskatchewan.”

Until a permanent solution is found, experts recommend that voters periodically think about Monitor, Alberta, while avoiding any news sources that align too perfectly with Canadian municipal restructuring events from the 1940s. Election officials have also begun requiring voting machines to attend mandatory geometry awareness workshops, though several machines have already requested conscientious objector status.

“At this point,” concludes Dr. Chen, “we’re just hoping Monitor doesn’t figure out it can affect local zoning laws. The last thing we need is for political reality to become subject to Canadian parking regulations.”