Voter fraud! Fat bear contest had 7,000 fake votes, as trolls stuffed the ballot box before finals

By
Suzanne Downing
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8

Bear 747 has been advanced to the semi-finals bracket for the Tuesday’s final 2022 Fat Bear Week contest, after the National Park Service’s semi-final had more than 7,000 fake votes cast for the bear named Holly.

“Like bears stuff their face with fish, our ballot box, too, has been stuffed. It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear Week poll, but fortunately it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent. We have discarded the fake votes and today’s official totals are: 747: 37,940 435: 30,430,” the Katmai National Park Twitter account wrote on Oct. 9.

Bear 747 weighed in around 1,400 pounds, voters believe, and is still the bear to beat. Nicknamed the Earl of Avoirdupois, he was voted the heftiest out of 12 bears in the 2021 contest. And in 2020. Holly is out of the running, or rather waddling. Bear 901 is “in it to win it” for the fight for fatdom. But can she take on 747?

Voting for the final fat bear winner starts Tuesday at 8 am Alaska time, ending at 5 pm at this link.

The Katmai National Park hosts the annual bracket-style contest for bears at the park, in cooperation with explore.org. The fun contest has people from all over the world tuning into the park’s live cameras at Brooks Falls to watch the bears chow down on salmon.

“With a preponderance of pudge, 901 left 128 grazed & confused. New bear on the bracket block, swole sow & rumble-ready rookie secured her spot in this year’s #FatBearWeek finale. Tune in 10/11 for the biggest match of the season. Voting opens at 8am AK at http://fatbearweek.org,” the NPS Twitter account announced, lining up 747’s biggest rival for Tuesday’s final voting period.

Confusing? Are they using Dominion machines over at the NPS? Will the loser bear ask for a recount? The whole thing is fishy, but at least the #FatBearWeek contest hasn’t gone to an open primary and ranked choice voting. May the best — or fattest — bear win.

8 COMMENTS

  1. fortunately, it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent.
    So can we have that same hardware to count the votes in the 2022 General Midterm election and then just for the hell of it run the results of the 2020 Presential election through the wickets of this hardware.

    “They don’t have to win the vote, they just have to win the count”

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