Someone explain this to me.

I decided to clean my stove this evening, including scrubbing the drip pans under the burners and those metal rings that hold the drip pans in place. I discovered that the drip pans (which have been in bad shape for a long time anyway) have now rusted through in spots. No problem, I thought, I'll cover them in aluminum foil like my mother always did when I was a kid.

Ed wasn't sure this was a good idea, so I googled it. It turns out that Ed is correct: covering your drip pans in aluminum foil, while common, is not recommended. Apparently the aluminum foil can create a short circuit. Now, if the drip pans were ceramic (on some stoves, they are) or some other insulating material, I could understand why the aluminum foil might create a problem, but my drip pans are metal (hence the rust). So why would aluminum foil create a short-circuit when the metal drip pans don't?

(I also discovered in my Googling that drip pans are available for about $2 each, so replacing them is not honestly that big a deal. But I'm still baffled by this.)