Against all odds, Democrat Doug Jones was elected to the U.S. Senate near the beginning of this month, beating Republican candidate and alleged pedophile Roy Moore. Jones’ victory was decisive, but the fact that it wasn’t a full-on trouncing says something pretty depressing about the political climate in this country now. Apparently, though, some of that can be pinned on the fact that a lot of people in Alabama think of themselves as pretty clever pranksters, as The Hollywood Reporter has shared a report on the 23,000 write-in candidates that people in the state voted for—many of which are hilarious joke names.
Basically, while a lot of people in the country were stressing out about how close Alabama came to electing an alleged pedophile simply because he’s a Republican, 23,000 people in Alabama actually filled out ballots just so they could vote for, say, Kermit The Frog or George W. Bush. Oh sure, they probably had a good laugh and it definitely made for a funny story later that day, but these people could’ve just as easily voted for the alleged pedophile and then told their friends they voted for Kermit.
Anyway, who cares, people can vote however they want to vote—as long as the alleged pedophile doesn’t win. So what other hilarious gags did these people go with? SpongeBob SquarePants got a vote, as did Bruce Wayne, Tyler Perry, Tim Gunn, Charles Barkley, Adam Levine, Billy Joel, Bridget Jones, and (as if he’s not busy enough) Santa Claus. Some particularly dedicated weirdos even voted for Donald Trump, which is almost as stupid as voting for him in the presidential election was, and others wrote-in variations of “a normal Republican” because voting for a Democrat is simply too horrific to consider.
But whatever. The better guy won, and the people who voted for Kermit can rest peacefully with the knowledge that they didn’t compromise their ideals by selecting an actual candidate (or simply leaving it blank, or not voting at all, both of which are perfectly acceptable options).