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If there is any truth to the legend, I would guess the person is Al Shugart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shugart

He lead the teams that created the world's first disk drive and the floppy drive. He later founded Seagate.

I did not find a reference to this incident, but he did have a love for Hawaiian shirts, and he did things like try to get his dog elected to Congress, so it would not seem too far fetched for him to do something like what you are describing.




From his Wikipedia page you linked to:

> In 1996, he launched an unsuccessful campaign to elect Ernest, his Bernese Mountain Dog, to Congress.

I like this guy.


People do similar tricks all the time in some countries. The goal is to obtain a copy of the census.

Political parties can ask for a free copy so they can mail info to the pool of possible voters. Is one of their rights as candidates. This information is valuable [1], can be sold or used in other projects to find possible clients, so is not a totally crazy move

Can be also interesting just as exercise to teach yourself in the inner parts of the voting system.

[1](specially in the pre-Facebook age. Not so much today).


I prefer successful campaigns to elect dogs.

In fact let’s make it required that only animals can be elected. Sure they have handlers who tell them how to vote, but at least the pictures would be nicer.




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