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Voting Irregularities in the Washington Post Peeps Contest?

- April 2, 2013

Lined up in my home office are 117 very grumpy Cardinal Peeps.  They lost the Washington Post Peeps Contest.  They did not even make the top 42 set of finalists and semi-finalists selected by the newsroom of the Washington Post.  Is an investigation of voting irregularities in the Washington Post Peeps Contest in order?

Indulge me if you will for a brief update on the fate of my family’s entry into the Post‘s Peeps Contest.  After posting photos here on the Monkey Cage, lo and behold the Peepal Conclave went viral.  The Peeps Company posted the photos on their Facebook page, earning over 3600 likes and 14,000 shares.  David Spade tweeted the Peepal photos.  Even Captain Sulu swiped a photo for his Facebook page, earning the Peepal Conclave over 52,000 likes and 30,000 shares.   New York Times staff liked the Cardinals, and a Washington Post Style section writer declared the Peepal Conclave a sure winner:

Even the Washington Post’s graphic designer whose handiwork was featured in the diorama liked it:

But alas, the mainstream media is unmoved by social media: the conclave did not pass muster with the Washington Post newsroom, whose votes selected the contest winners.  This travesty of Peepal justice makes me wonder about the voting rules used by the Post to select the contest winners.  Is the voting rigged?  Does the newsroom keep a paper trail of its votes?  Were the Post‘s voter rolls purged of reporters with the best sense of humor before the elections?  Does the Post‘s Magazine editor turn away newsroom voters after the polls close even though they’re still waiting in line to vote?  Did the editor reduce the number of early voting days when the Peepal Conclave started racking up votes?  Do we need election observers at the Post for next year’s Peeps Contest?   Bring in Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsburg and investigate!

Of course, I should be upfront and confess that not everyone was impressed by our Peepal efforts:

(On the bright side, I don’t spend my time posting comments on Captain Sulu’s Facebook page.) Regardless, rest assured that my daughter and I have dusted off the Peeps sugar, moved the Sistine Chapel off the dining room table to make room for a Passover seder, and are already looking forward to next year’s contest.