America’s beloved and now deceased gorilla Harambe did not receive 11,000 —or even 15,000 as some news outlets have reported—write-in votes for president.
Harambe’s death was controversial in May of 2016 when a child fell into the 450-pound gorilla’s enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, prompting keepers to shoot the gorilla before it could cause harm to the child.
The death of Harambe went viral immediately, especially amongst teens and millenials. (For more information on the gorilla, read “The Killing of Harambe,” a very real Wikipedia page ready for perusal.)
So when Twitter and Facebook began reporting that America’s favorite primate had received 11-15,000 write-in votes for president, Ohioans were disappointed, but not suprised.
However, it turns out those reports were false.
While some did, in fact, write in Harambe for president, there is no statistical or factual data to back the claim that he received so many votes. Actually, any votes for Harambe would have been labeled “Unofficial Votes,” which means they wouldn’t have been counted in the official presidential tally.
Anyone claiming that Harambe received 15,000 votes is repeating a false claim, with no data to support it.
