Their faces are on campaign posters, but their names are not on the ballot paper — so why do unelectable candidates vie for victory in local elections?
The tradition of promoting non-human candidates on election placards continued this weekend in the Northern Territory local government elections.
They included Butters, a west highland terrier cross who is campaigning to become mayor of both Darwin and Palmerston, and president of Coomalie Shire.
While Butters hasn't been formally nominated and isn't on the ballot paper, six of his posters are on display around the Top End.
Campaign manager Will Baldwin, nine, from Batchelor says his pet dog is promising "free ice cream, more pocket money, free slushies and no more homework".
"He's smart, loyal, well-behaved and better than human candidates."
Big paws to fill
Butters is filling the shoes of an incumbent political dog.
There are not many Top Enders who haven't heard of Scrumpy the jack russell terrier.
Scrumpy campaigned for Territory Parliament in 2016, Darwin and Palmerston mayor in 2017 and posthumously for Federal Parliament in 2019.
It helped that his former owner Deb Taipale also ran a sign-manufacturing business.
"We did six posters just to amuse ourselves."
Scrumpy's death in January 2019 made front-page news in the NT and prompted much mourning on social media.
"If it gave a few people a laugh, then great. But it went nuts," Ms Taipale said.
Close to the bone
The 2012 local elections in Alice Springs saw a prankster erect joke placards featuring characters that some felt were similar in appearance to some of the real candidates.
Mayor Damien Ryan freely admits he has a likeness with Family Guy lead character Peter Griffin.
The character appeared on Alice Springs lampposts during the election campaign.
"I laughed my head off because I knew straight away that the depiction of Peter Griffin was me," Councillor Ryan said.
The perpetrator has never owned up, but Councillor Ryan has his suspicions following an anonymous letter to his office.
"There was a couple of angry candidates, you might say," he said.
Placards for Gollum from Lord of the Rings and Sesame Street's Cookie Monster have also caught the town's attention.
Sinister side
But sometimes the joke can get out of hand and there are about a dozen cases worldwide — mostly in the USA — where dogs, goats, cats, a mule, and even a foot powder have been elected to office.
Less successful candidates included a rhinoceros, a boar hog, a turtle, chimpanzees, a puppet, a chicken and a fire hydrant.
University of Queensland psychology professor Winifred Louis said there were four evidence-based reasons why joke candidates appeared.
"One [reason] is larrikins, where probably younger people, probably friends, egg each other on," she said.
"Another reason is low political interest and anger about compulsory voting."
In that case, Professor Louis says "people don't care who wins".
"They just want to make the point that the system is contemptible," she said.
The third reason is strategic, where a joke candidate is used to attract votes away from a close rival.
"You can put up a joke candidate that may attract something like 5 per cent of the votes and the preferences of that person can be used to win a title election," Professor Louis said.
"That's a bit cynical and in fact fraudulent.
Professor Louis said the last reason for a joke candidate was the most common.
"Which is a protest that the major parties don't offer a good choice, that the field is bad," she said.
