Remember Hank, the Maine coon cat who ran for the U.S. Senate seat in Virginia? His biggest human competitors were Tim Kaine and George Allen. Kaine won the election with 1.9 million votes to Allen's 1.7 million. But what if the race had been closer? Hank the cat pulled in thousands of write-in votes, making him a possible third-place finisher!
Virginia doesn’t list the names of write-in candidates, but it does show the number of write-in votes by county. So we don’t know for sure if Hank came in third, but it’s a growing possibility.
Matthew O’Leary, the campaign manager for Hank, tells Constitution Daily that his candidate has 6,832 votes as of Thursday morning, not counting absentee and provisional ballots.
O’Leary says it is the highest total for a write-in U.S. Senate candidate in Virginia since 2002, which would likely indicate that Hank finished third behind Kaine and Allen, when the election board releases that data.
O’Leary hopes to have a final vote count on Tuesday, November 13, when Virginia’s precincts have to file certified results. He also will contact each of Virginia’s 134 precincts to request write-in results.
Even if he had won the race, Hank would be ineligible to hold the office. He's only ten years old. Link -via Buzzfeed