Officials confirm the win is valid but decline to explain how sworn in procedures will work
A local community board election produced an unusual result this week after a write in campaign for the city’s famously resourceful subway pizza rat secured enough votes to technically win a vacant board seat, prompting election officials to confirm the tally as valid while declining to offer any clear explanation of how, exactly, the winner might be expected to attend meetings.
An Unlikely Campaign Gains Momentum
The write in effort began, according to several residents involved, as a lighthearted joke circulated within a neighborhood social media group frustrated by persistently low turnout for local community board elections, an office many residents admit they had never previously paid much attention to. What started as a handful of ironic write in votes for the pizza rat, referencing the widely shared viral video of a rat dragging an entire slice down a subway staircase several years ago, quickly snowballed into a genuine grassroots campaign complete with hand drawn campaign posters and a modest but dedicated volunteer canvassing effort.
Nobody expected this to actually work, one of the campaign’s informal organizers admitted, laughing. We just wanted to make a point about how few people actually vote in these elections. Then suddenly we are looking at the certified count and the rat won by a real, meaningful margin. Now we have to figure out what happens next, and frankly none of us know.
Officials Confirm the Result, Reluctantly
The local board of elections, after some internal deliberation, confirmed that write in votes for the pizza rat did, in fact, meet the technical threshold required to win the seat under existing local rules, which do not specifically prohibit non human write in candidates, an oversight one election official admitted had simply never come up before in the office’s institutional memory. The official noted that while the result appeared procedurally valid, practical questions regarding the winner’s ability to fulfill basic board responsibilities, including attending monthly meetings and voting on zoning matters, remained entirely unresolved.
We have certified election results that did not anticipate this scenario, the official said. Legally, as far as we can tell, the seat has been won. Whether it can actually be filled is, at this point, a question well above my pay grade.
Community Reaction Ranges From Delight to Genuine Concern
Neighborhood reaction has been largely celebratory, with several residents describing the outcome as a fitting and good humored commentary on chronically low civic engagement in local elections, an issue community board members themselves have long acknowledged as a persistent challenge. Others expressed more genuine concern, noting that the vacant seat, whatever its comedic backstory, represents a real gap in representation for residents who rely on the board to weigh in on local zoning, liquor licensing, and street closure decisions.
The community board’s chairperson, addressing the situation at a recent meeting, said the board would likely need to formally declare the seat vacant and schedule a special election, a process that, she noted with some resignation, may itself become the subject of a second write in campaign given how enthusiastically residents had embraced the first one.
A Symbol of Something Larger
Political observers covering the story, including commentary circulating alongside broader local government reporting from outlets like The City, have noted that the pizza rat’s unlikely victory reflects a familiar and recurring frustration with low turnout, low visibility local elections that nonetheless carry real influence over neighborhood decisions most residents never think to weigh in on until it directly affects them.
For now, the seat remains formally vacant, its winner unavailable for comment, having last been seen, according to unconfirmed reports, dragging what appeared to be a folded slice of pizza down a nearby subway staircase, seemingly unaware of, or entirely unbothered by, his new civic responsibilities.
Bohiney.com will continue following the special election process as it develops.
A Pattern Beyond This One District
Local political observers note that this is not the first time a joke write in candidate has gained real traction in a low turnout local race, pointing to similar incidents in past years involving beloved neighborhood pets and, in one case, a well known street performer who received enough write in votes to raise eyebrows without technically winning outright. What sets the pizza rat campaign apart, observers say, is the sheer scale of organized effort behind an otherwise clearly tongue in cheek campaign, suggesting genuine frustration with local civic engagement runs deeper than a single viral joke.
The city’s board of elections says it plans to review its write in candidacy rules more broadly following this incident, though officials cautioned that any formal rule change would likely take months to work through the necessary regulatory process, meaning the current ambiguity may persist through at least one more election cycle.
In the meantime, several other neighborhoods have reportedly begun floating their own joke write in candidates for upcoming board vacancies, with organizers in one nearby district already circulating early campaign materials for a well known subway busker, suggesting the pizza rat’s unlikely win may have opened a door local election officials are not entirely prepared to close.
The original campaign’s organizers say they have no plans to run a formal successor candidate themselves, insisting their goal was always awareness rather than an ongoing electoral movement, though several admitted they would not necessarily object if voters chose to keep the tradition alive next cycle.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com