Colbert, Claus and two Ducks pick up votes in Queens

Stephen Colbert, Santa Claus and Donald Duck were just several of the names Queens voters wrote into their ballots during the November general election, according to the certified election results from the New York City Board of Elections.  AP photos by Chris Pizzello/Jacqueline Dormer/Republican-Herald/Kin Cheung

By Jacob Kaye

Being on the ballot isn’t everything – just ask Santa Claus.

The bearded gift giver was one of hundreds of names Queens voters wrote onto their ballot during last month’s general election.

The voters’ belief in Claus must be waning – he only nabbed one mayoral vote in Queens. However, if he were to have officially launched a campaign for the office, he could have filed his Board of Elections paperwork using the name Santa Claus instead of his birth name, Saint Nicholas of Myra, thanks to a recent law passed by Governor Kathy Hochul. The new law allows candidates to run on the name they’re known by, instead of the name on their birth certificate.

Some Queens voters just wanted a mayor that would make them laugh. Stephen Colbert, comedian Paddy Tubz and Whoopi Goldberg each picked up a couple of votes in the borough.

Both Daffy and Donald Duck only came 181,947 votes shy of winning the race for Queens borough president.

Ed Sheeran’s campaign promise to sing all of his decisions from behind the bench only seemed to resonate with one single voter in the race for countywide Civil Court judge.

Should he have received an additional 8,000 or so votes, Bilbo Baggins would have had to head out on a long journey from his home in the Shire to his new home in Queens, where he would have been elected as a judge.

But Nicki Minaj wouldn’t have had to travel for – the hip hop star was raised in South Jamaica and also got a vote for a judicial seat.

Plenty of Queens voters felt that being amongst the living was not a prequest a mayoral candidate had to meet – Theodore Roosevelt, Norman Mailer and Fiorello La Guardia each picked up votes in the borough where there are more people buried than alive.

As is true each election cycle, the ultimate winner of the write-in campaign was bad handwriting. Unattributable write-ins blew all other candidates out of the water.