Morongo Valley Pet Mayor Election attacked with voter fraud, gains two dog mayors
To avoid any last-minute upsets like the 2024 election when in-person voters banded together last minute to elect Ziggy the Chicken, this year voting was done anonymously online through Facebook. Former mayor Roxy was present to pass off her seat to the pet mayor with the most votes, and Fire Chief Daniel Casner was the Master of Ceremonies for this election. Casner announced all the candidates, from dogs, cats, snakes, and Mojave Weird’s pet rock Pedro.
Dogs like Stormy, Precious, Molly, and Freyja were present, while Mini the Dog, Cheddar the Cat and Marshmallow the albino snake were no-shows to the event, but still received runner-up status with prize bags sent to their homes.
Pedro the rock received a surprising number of 43 votes, edging him into third place. Despite Pedro being a candidate of very few words, Casner called Pedro “a solid individual who never cracked under pressure during this entire process.”
Precious the Pug came in second place with 85 votes.
And with an impressive 115 votes, the new mayor of Morongo Valley is Molly the Shitzu.
Upon the announcement, Molly took a victory lap down the red carpet to receive a treat from her owner before the flurry of camera flashes.
However, just because the rock didn’t win, doesn’t mean the sediment didn’t thicken.
On Sunday, October 4, Pet Mayor Election organizer Buddy Stogner reached out to Z107.7 News with news that they had discovered a fraudulent Facebook account posing as an official Pet Mayor voting site, with a link that redirected voters to another false account taking money through Facebook Payment where they had their donations stolen and votes voided. The official voting site was through Morongo Valley CSD, which has secure payment through Stripe.
Stogner said the fraud account went up as the official polls closed on September 30, and by the time he was alerted to the account, it had vanished, along with the donations and votes.
Once they were able to reach out to all voters to document their votes, there was a large twist to the mayoral race: it turns out Freyja the Micro Bully received 124 votes putting her in first place and technically, the new mayor of Morongo Valley.
What does an unincorporated town’s grassroots Pet Mayor race do with their first encounter of voter fraud? Stogner said they discussed taking the seat from Molly and giving it to Freyja, but after careful consideration and for the first time in its history, Morongo Valley will have two mayors this term: Molly the Shitzu will serve the first six months, followed by Freyja the Micro Bully closing out the term. Freyja will be sworn in this week by one of the Morongo Valley Fire Department Chiefs. Stogner added they will be returning to in-person paper voting next year to avoid the risk of online fraud.
Freyja’s owner Wes Wilson spoke to Z107.7 News, expressing his gratitude to Stogner (whose daughter is the owner of Molly, the original winner) and the participants coming together to solve the problem fairly and without conflict which he called “unity in community.”
“Buddy’s daughter walked her dog up (to receive the mayor certificate) and I was like, ‘I don’t wanna take anything from these people,’ so I didn’t want to even say anything, and I kept telling Buddy that. But to his credit, Buddy’s the one who insisted, and he said, ‘whoever got most votes needs to win.’ Then one step further, when he brought back the votes and he showed me that she had the votes, he said, ‘This needs to be investigated. What was donated to little league baseball needs to go to little league baseball.’ This guy is an absolute man of integrity. So hats off to Buddy, man. That is the spirit of Morongo, just unity in community,” said Wilson.
