Angela Merkel won’t ever be president of the United States. She’s German, after all. Neither will Dwight Eisenhower or Abraham Lincoln serve again (newsflash: they’re dead). Nor will the Dalai Lama, Pope Francis, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, or Petey the Cockatiel occupy the White House.

But for at least a few D.C. voters, all of those were better choices than the candidates listed on November’s ballot.

Almost 350,000 votes were cast in the city in November’s election; of those cast for president, 3,137 were write-ins. (That’s roughly half the number cast in 2016.) None of those write-ins had any chance of actually affecting the outcome of the presidential race, or even most of the other contests on the ballot. And most are destined to historic anonymity; the D.C. Board of Elections will list the number of write-in votes that were cast, but will only ever disclose the names of those write-ins if they could actually impact the outcome of a race.

“Bart Simpson – 4 Anarchy,” unfortunately, did not qualify. Bummer, dude. Neither did Joe Rogan, Eddie Vedder, Peanut Butter, Michelle Obama, Jesus, Jared Kushner, Pedro, or Anthony Fauci.

Those were among the write-in votes that DCist/WAMU was able to obtain from the D.C. Board of Elections. (Credit for the idea goes to Ward 6 ANC Commissioner Mark Eckenwiler.) The review — a high-minded way of saying we scrolled through a massive Excel spreadsheet — shows that for some voters, their write-in was something of a joke. Harambe and Kobe Bryant, for one, are not a competitive pairing for a presidential ticket.

But for others, it was a statement of protest. One voter wrote in “Black Lives Matter,” another opted for “ELECTORALVOTEISAGAINSTDEMOCRAC,” and a third, more cynically, chose “DOESIT ‘REALLY’ MATTER.” Others more thoughtfully crafted their own political options — Colin Powell, Mitt Romney, James Mattis, Jeb Bush, Denver Riggleman, Justin Amash, and Sen. Bernie Sanders among them. And there were some unexpected political pairings: Mike Pence and Bill Barr, Sens. Tim Scott and Ben Sasse, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro, and… Kanye West and Jesse Ventura.

Speaking of Kanye, Yeezy actually tried to run something of a presidential campaign — unsuccessfully, though. He did register as a write-in in Maryland, getting 1,117 votes statewide out of more than 2.8 million cast. (It’s worth noting here that one write-in was cast by Gov. Larry Hogan, but for Ronald Reagan.) In Virginia, West failed to get on the ballot after several state electors claimed they were duped into supporting his quixotic run.

There were also write-ins for the two At-Large seats on the D.C. Council; 2,266 all told. Donald Trump lost the presidential contest decisively in D.C., but at least a few people thought his talents could be used on the council. Others used their write-in to make a political point (“Fair Elections,” “Build More Housing,” “Open Schools,” “George Floyd,” “Too Many Candidates,” and “Who cares”). Some opted to support their favorite local athlete (Alex Ovechkin, T.J. Oshie, Max Scherzer, John Wall, and Bradley Beal), fictional character (Jessica Rabbit, Elmer Fudd, Oscar the Grouch, Fred Flintstone, Cosmo Kramer, and Porky Pig) or cultural figure (Dave Grohl, Henry Rollins, Kojo Nnamdi).

It is, of course, easy to poke fun at write-in votes; given the listed options, some voters clearly were trying to have fun with their civic duty — especially in a presidential race where the outcome wasn’t all but certain. But those votes can make a difference — in some ANC races, the fact that there were no listed candidates meant that write-in contenders actually emerged victorious. And let’s not forget the 2002 mayoral election, when massive fraud on his nominating petitions forced Anthony Williams to run for re-election as write-in candidate. He won.

But Seymour Butts did not. Yes, someone actually wrote that in. And “A. Ham Sandwich.” Let us not neglect Myself, Me, the Easter Bunny, Jack the Bulldog, and Vladimir Lenin. It wouldn’t be 2020 without at least one vote for Gritty. And Homer Simpson. D’oh.

For at least one grammatically-inclined-yet-undecided D.C. voter, the choice was clear: “Whomever.”