As A Protest Vote
- Mad Magazine has satirically called to vote for Alfred E. Neuman as a write-in candidate for every U.S. presidential election from 1960 to 1980 with slogans like "You could do worse-and you already have" and "There are Bigger Idiots running for office!".
- In the 1980 U.S. Presidential election, rock star Joe Walsh ran a mock write-in campaign, promising to make his song "Life's Been Good" the new national anthem if he won, and running on a platform of "Free Gas for Everyone." Though Walsh (then aged 33) was not old enough to actually assume the office, he wanted to raise public awareness of the election. (In 1992, Walsh purportedly ran for vice-president, in his song "Vote For Me", a track on his album Songs for a Dying Planet, which was released that year.)
- During the 2000 United States Congress Elections, film-maker Michael Moore led a campaign for voters to submit a ficus tree as a write-in candidate. This campaign was replicated across the country and was recounted in an episode of The Awful Truth.
- In 2012, a campaign was waged to write in Charles Darwin's name against Paul Broun after Broun "called evolution and other areas of science 'lies straight from the pit of hell.'” Darwin received approximately 4,000 votes.
Read more about this topic: Write-in Candidate
Famous quotes containing the words protest and/or vote:
“The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behoves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c’est l’homme, what is likely to happen if l’homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual?”
—Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)
“Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)