A former Nickelodeon executive, he was an executive producer of "Kids Choicee" in its early years, and a talent booker on a precursor, called "Big Ballot".
But the bomb turns out to be a packing case containing voting materials -- ballots and a big cardboard ballot box -- to be used in gathering the islanders' votes in a major national election.
The charity has now developed a toolkit, the Big Ballot Box, designed to help other organisations set up their own parliaments.
In 1986, the network created "Big Ballot," the first national poll of children's likes and dislikes.
One poll worker verified fingerprints with a computer scanner, another tore ballots from a big pad, and another stamped ballots as voters filed past, one by one, disappearing into cardboard voting booths and then emerging a few minutes later to stuff their ballots into a row of color-coded tubs.
Politicians, it says, must ask themselves whether they will "honour the biggest ballot box mandate in British history... or sniffily decide the little people cannot be trusted".
Few expect them to be a big force at the ballot box later this year when Japan holds parliamentary elections.
That bill would require the attorney general to stamp a big warning on any ballot proposal she or he considers a violation of an individual's rights under the state or U.S. Constitution.
"You could have a big pile" of challenged ballots, Mr. Ritchie, a Democrat, said.
Bite the Ballot played a big role in persuading millions of young people to register to vote (though there is still much work to be done on this front, as the differential turnout in the referendum showed once again).
