Perennial write-in candidate Mickey Mouse took home 25 votes this year in Wake County, making the affable Disney rodent the top fictional candidate for both U.S. Senate and Wake Soil and Water Commissioner.
Mickey’s total was nowhere close to the actual winners, but he did well enough to beat Donald Duck, Captain Planet and ham sandwich. The sandwich was one vote ahead of “me,” which was the preferred choice of five voters, according to results released Friday.
President Barack Obama, who’d fared well among write-ins two years ago, didn’t hit the five-vote threshold for Wake election officials to report his candidacy to the state.
Beyond the fictional candidates, actual candidates from soil and water contests in other counties proved popular as write-ins. Six Wake voters wrote in Carvel Cheves, apparently unaware that the Bunn farmer was seeking Franklin County’s soil and water post. Meanwhile, Wake’s incumbent commissioner Jenna Wadsworth was so popular she garned 32 write-ins in Orange County.
In the Senate contest, 0.17 percent of Wake voters and 0.18 percent of voters statewide opted for the write-in line. In Wake, Greg Brannon – the Republican candidate who lost to Thom Tillis in the primary – fared best with 86 votes.
And 23 voters were so fed up with the race they wrote “none of the above,” with five other voters casting ballots for “no one.”
Wondering what prompts voters to go the write-in route? Read Josh Shaffer’s recent column.
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