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'Laid bear': Rigging mars Alaskan Fat Bear Week as officials eliminate more than 7,000 fake votes

'Someone has decided to spam the polls, but it is easy for us to tell,' the organizer of the competition, Katami National Park, tweeted

The famous Fat Bear Week held by the Katmai National Park in Alaska was found to be rigged after officials found fake votes being cast. The two contenders competing were Bear 747 and Holly. After more than 7,000 fake votes were eliminated, it was found that Bear 747 was the real winner with 37,940 votes while Holly, Bear 435, bagged 30,430 votes.

On Monday, October 10, the national park tweeted, "FAT BEAR WEEK SCANDAL Like bears stuff their face with fish, our ballot box, too, has been stuffed." Later they added to the thread a statement with the final vote counts. The tweet read, "It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear Week poll, but fortunately it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent. We have discarded the fake votes and today’s official totals are: 747: 37,940, 435: 30,430"

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Every year in October, the park organizes Fat Bear Week which is an "imaginary competition" where the audience is supposed to vote for a bear that has "chunked itself" up the best before hibernation season. The voting happens on the basis of pictures released by park officials. However, this year's competition was marred by the voting scam. The competition drew myriad reactions from people, including references to the 2020 US Presidential elections.

A person tweeted, "What's wrong with people," to which the park responded, "We're touched that people love our bears enough to sway votes in their favor, but they deserve a clean win, even in an imaginary competition." Another user said, "The competition may be imaginary, but the glory is real."

Referring to January 6 Capitol riot, a person tweeted, "Careful. We don’t want people violently storming the park," while the other tweeted, "NOOOOoooooo I was so happy when I saw Holly was leading. I feel like storming the national parks on Jan 6th."

There were responses that brought back the mantra used by Donald Trump, "STOP THE STEAL" or "STOP THE COUNT".

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