Easily Elected

"According to Duke's owner David Rick, the pup was originally elected by accident via write-in votes. Only 12 votes were reportedly cast in that 2014 election."

— An article about Duke the Great Pyrenees dog, mayor of Cormorant, Minnesota, USA.

A character somehow manages to get elected as the ruler of a town, state, or country, even though they meet pretty much none of the basic requirements/qualifications to run for candidacy, much less take the office.

Fiction tends to have rather lax ideas on how authority and leadership structures work. Just about any regular joe can come up to Fictionland's sovereign for a nice chat, and their supposedly formal governmental bodies have little more structure than a group of friends hanging out in uniforms. Some stories, however, take things even further by having such a careless hierarchical system that any random civilian — or even non-citizens, animals, and/or inanimate objects — can find themselves in the highest position of authority due to a clerical mistake, the nation's own Loony Laws on election, or some other weird technicality. Often, the elected won't even know about their inexplicable rise to power until after everyone else does.

This is a common way to play with the Election Day Episode, subverting audience expectations by having a non-candidate win despite never being involved in any political office in the first place. Quite often, it will be a Landslide Election to show how fed up the people are with the other guy.

In a more Medieval Fantasy setting, the hero might also find themselves becoming the ruler of whatever kingdom his slain enemy used to govern as a side effect of completing their Hero's Journey, even if they had never intended to become King/Queen in the first place.

The person who suddenly found themselves in this position of headship is often a Reluctant Ruler — there is a reason why they were not in politics before their unfortunate ascension, after all — although they may prove to be a better ruler than the "legitimate" candidates before them. Or they may prove themselves terribly suited for the job and is just as quickly and easily removed from power as they came into it.

Almost always Played for Laughs, although it may appear in more serious works to highlight the poor state of the setting that causes it to lack any proper channels for establishing authority. See also Artistic License – Law for a wider range of moments where there are liberties with law.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Doughnut Pudding, it is revealed that headmaster Pierre's wig is the symbol of headship for the school, and whoever wears them will become headmaster, regardless of qualification. When his wig gets stolen by a group of bad guys while he's showering, all the students start fighting over the wig to become headmaster. In the end, the wig is blown by the wind and falls onto the head of a raccoon, and it becomes the new school headmaster.
• Dragon Goes House-Hunting. Invoked. The title of Dark Lord (i.e. the leader of all non-human sapient creatures) is something that can be won through a lottery at a fair. Dearia managed to win it even though he only participated in the lottery to get some tissue they were distributing as consolation prize. Justified since the title is just a formality, and most of the non-human races are autonomous, so the organizers don't really care who actually becomes the Dark Lord as long as they have one.
• Subverted in The Mermaid Princess's Guilty Meal. When Ela smacks her head and loses her memory, she ends up being recruited by the Independent Party and runs for Japanese Prime Minister. If not for a porgy dinner jogging her memory, she would have won.

Asian Animation

• Simple Samosa: In "Mayor Gaayab", absolutely none of the replacements for Chatpata Nagar's mayor are even given an election to determine who should be mayor, so everyone simply sits on the mayor's chair and declares themselves leader. One of them, Cham Cham, starts to act like a despotic king and renames the city "Cham Cham Nagar" the moment he takes the helm, immediately proving himself to be a bad candidate for the elections a real-life town or country would have; unsurprisingly, he's overthrown.

Comic Books

• Preacher: In the "Salvation" arc, Jesse Custer wanders into the tiny town of Salvation, TX, which is rife with racial division and vandalism from the local meatpacking company. When the town sheriff asks if Jesse wants to be his deputy and help clean the place up, Jesse retorts that he'd rather be the sheriff. This causes the sheriff to immediately hand his badge and office over to Jesse and leave town; when an incredulous Jesse asks about an election, the sheriff quips that Salvation will get around to one eventually. In the end, Jesse does the same and gives the badge to his deputy when he leaves to complete his mission.
• Prez (2015): In a Crapsack World set 20 Minutes into the Future, a teenager named Beth Ross becomes a popular write-in candidate for the Presidential election after featuring in a viral video. However, the two major parties end up maneuvering each other out of the running, meaning that to her horror Beth ends up elected President.
• PS238: Tyler ends up getting elected class president despite not running for office. This was because the two kids who were running, American Eagle and Patriot Act, were both so annoying that the rest of the class voted for Tyler as a write-in candidate.
• The Transformers Megaseries: After the events of All Hail Megatron, the Autobots are stranded on Earth after Optimus Prime foolishly decides to remain out of guilt for not stopping the Decepticons sooner. Optimus further compounds his poor decision-making by resigning as Autobot leader and surrendering to the humans in an attempt to show not all Cybertronians are bad. The Autobots hold an election to choose a new leader, and to his surprise Bumblebee (who up until this point had never shown any sort of leadership skill or interest) is chosen, allegedly because he's so friendly almost everyone likes him. Cliffjumper bitterly observes that that means that it wasn't so much an election as it was a popularity contest.

Literature

• In the backstory of The Belgariad, Sendaria's attempts to create a democracy got off to a rough start, as they allowed anyone to run for the throne, everyone was given one vote and the winner had to have a majority. The first election took seven years to winnow through the seven hundred-odd candidates and ultimately crowned a rutabaga farmer who had long since forgotten he was on the ballot. Nonetheless, he was The Good King.
• How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Souma Kazuya, a university student and aspiring civil servant, is summoned to another world with the expectation from the King and Queen of Elfrieden who summoned him that he will go off to fight the Demon Lord. After all relevant circumstances are explained to him, he offers the counter-proposal of an extensive reform program to rebuild Elfrieden's declining fortunes. After two days of talks, to the surprise of everyone including Souma, the King and Queen announce his betrothal to their Crown Princess and then Abdicate the Throne to him. This is just the first chapter: the rest of the story is about how he rises to the challenge.
• Only the Ring Finger Knows: Kazuki got the most votes student council president despite not even running. The votes were declared invalid and the runner up was elected instead. Despite this, the president is actually his friend and allows Kazuki to have a key to the office.
• The Tamuli: Leaders in the Republic of Tega are forcibly elected — candidates can't refuse nomination and are guarded to prevent escape. If elected, all their assets are converted into shares of the national treasury to encourage responsible rule. (At least reelection is illegal.)
• In The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles, the city of Toronto is a "popularchy" where "Anyone who really wants to be in charge can be in charge." In practice, this means they have multiple mayors simultaneously, and anyone can become a mayor just by walking into City Hall and asking.
• The Wheel of Time: The rebel faction of the Aes Sedai choose Egwene, who's only a trainee, to be their leader, without her foreknowledge. Justified because the councilors who select her only want a puppet for their own goals and a Fall Guy if the rebellion fails.

Live-Action TV

• Cheers: In the final season episode "Woody Gets An Election", Frasier gets irritated by the local councillor's Meaningless Meaningful Words and declares Woody could get into city hall, making a bet with Sam that he can get 11% of the electorate's vote with a mock campaign. Unfortunately for Frasier's peace of mind, Woody's earnestness wins him most of the vote, even when he tries to quit in a public debate. The episode also gives yet another alarming detail about Woody's hometown of Hanover, where a good deal of the voters are actual sheep...
• Coach: Howard was a member of a lodge, "The Fraternal Order of Loons" and was campaigning to be the "High Loon". The lodge has an actual loon, which hasn't made a sound in twenty years, present at all meetings. If the loon squawks while someone is talking, that person becomes High Loon.
• Dan for Mayor: Played with. Dan becomes a candidate for mayor in an attempt to prove to his ex-girlfriend that he can do something serious with his life. The current mayor is extremely popular so Dan ends up being the only other candidate. Then the mayor dies in an accident right after candidate registration has ended and Dan becomes mayor by default despite having no prior political experience and no inclination to do the job. However, Dan decides to do the honorable thing and gets the election board to reopen candidate registration. Dan then has to run a proper election campaign and is quickly outmatched by a much more competent rival. In the end, Dan only stays in the race so he can brag that he was a 'runner up' for mayor. However, fate once again intervenes and the leading candidate pulls out of the race at the last moment. Dan once again wins the election despite not wanting the job anymore.
• Doctor Who: In "The Invasion of Time", the Fourth Doctor becomes Lord President of Gallifrey in the fallout of "The Deadly Assassin" — despite having no experience as a politician, no desire to govern, and the fact that in that earlier story, he was accused of murdering the previous president. It turns out that he won by default because the only other candidate was killed by the Master during the events of "The Deadly Assassin", and he decided to claim the presidency as part of a scheme to defeat a group of Vardans attempting to invade Gallifrey.
• On Once Upon a Time, Emma gets elected town sheriff in the first season simply because she is the only one who wants to replace the previous sheriff after he dies. There is no official election held nor are her qualifications as to if she's capable of the job, which mainly consist of being a bail bondswoman previously, are even questioned. Granted, this can partially be explained away by the town being a construct of fairy tale magic, but you'd think the mayor would at least ask for an interview before just handing her the job.
• In one episode of Perfect Strangers, the King of Mypos comes to visit Larry and Balki. While he's greeting them, he dies and falls on Larry. Balki then tells Larry that the way Myposian royalty works, the first person the previous monarch touches after dying becomes the new one. Since Larry doesn't want to be the King of Mypos, he hatches a crazy scheme to pass the title to someone else.
• On Resident Alien, the mayor of Patience, Colorado, Mayor Ben Hawthorne, is said to have gotten into office because only 16% of the town's adult population even bothered to come out to vote. 41 of those who voted for him were fellow Hawthornes, leaving only 8 outside the family who voted for him.

Video Games

• Lampshaded in the cutscene after Dwayne Pipe's final surgery in Amateur Surgeon 2. Bradley (who served as aide to Dwayne) questions how a convicted murderer was able to win the US presidential election while disguised, despite having already been arrested once and become one of the most wanted criminals after he escaped prison. In response, Alan Probe tells Bradley not to think much about such a "Plot Hole".
  Bradley: I had no idea the president was the bad guy! I mean, how does a criminal imprisoned for MURDER manage to get out of jail, disguise his identity, and then run for, and become, president of the United States?
  Alan: Ha! Listen... grandson. We could sit here and poke holes in the plot all night...
  [Alan and Bradley stare wordlessly at the fourth wall]
  Alan: ...but I think I'd rather we went and visited some of our family, and started rebuilding some bridges! Whaddya say?
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf: Upon arriving in their town, the first player is instantly named the mayor by Isabelle and the other residents. The dialogue options all express confusion indicating that the player never ran for the position — and they'd never even been to the town, let alone lived there, prior to that conversation.
• In Escape from Monkey Island, a stranger going by the name of Charles L. Charles (actually series villain LeChuck in disguise) easily defeats incumbent Elaine for governorship of Melee Island by promising the pirate residents "good times and free grog". After he wins, he sells the pirates into slavery.
• Fable: If you expose the Mayor as a murderer, a City Guard offhandedly offers you the job, never mind that you're an itinerant hero-for-hire. That said, while your predecessor is an Ultimate Authority Mayor, you have no duties or privileges other than a cutscene, a nice sword, and a bedroom.
• My Cafe: After Jennifer steps down as a mayor, she intends to leave the position to Donald, the deputy mayor. However, thanks to some paperwork errors, Donald accidentally made his girlfriend Daisy (who is a real estate agent) the mayor instead. She didn't even know about this until she heard the rumours from the other café customers.
• In Streets of Rogue, position of Mayor is determined by whoever has the Mayor's Hat. A popular enough player character can be elected Mayor just by asking for a new election, which takes under a minute to perform. This includes players that are vampires, zombies, gorillas, shapeshifting imps, and others.
• Played for Drama in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which has Big Bad Ryo Aoki trying to get the unqualified Bleach Japan activist Sota Kume elected as local minister in order to demonstrate his own political power.

Webcomics

• League of Super Redundant Heroes: In an early strip, alien conquistador Kurgh arrives in Shitropolis and demands the mayor surrender the city to him. The mayor goes one step further and happily makes Kurgh the mayor before vamoosing from the city from not wanting to deal with superhero nonsense anymore. The real kicker? Despite never having stood for election, Kurgh turns out to actually be a pretty good mayor!

Web Videos

• Discussed for laughs in The Nostalgia Critic's review on Les Miserables, due to Valjean's transformation from an escaped convict becoming to the town mayor being glossed over in a Time Skip. He then uses the film's illogical choice of skipping on Valjean's potential Character Development to rail against Fantine's horrific descent to poverty and prostitution after getting fired by asking why she doesn't step up her game and rise to a better position of power when it's apparently so easy to achieve.
  The Critic: Why? Hasn't she heard? She can be Mayor in a jump cut. Hell, by the time this movie is over, she'll probably be the Queen of France!

Western Animation

• Danny Phantom: While no election is shown, for whatever reason in the series finale “Phantom Planet” Tucker Foley becomes the new Mayor of Amity Park, despite having zero governing experience, was still in high school, and is not even old enough to vote himself.
• Gravity Falls: Zig-zagged in "The Stanchurian Candidate". The Town Charter states that anyone is a viable candidate for mayor provided that they "can cast a shadow, count to ten and throw their hat into the provided ring." However, despite Stan Pines getting the most votes, his lengthy criminal record leads to his disqualification. After Stan is disqualified from being mayor due to his criminal record, Tyler Cutebiker is made mayor by default, as he was the only candidate to actually fill out the paperwork. This is in spite of him not actually having done any campaigning or having any known qualifications.
• PAW Patrol: The Movie: starts with Mayor Humdinger having just won the role of, ironically, mayor for Adventure City. This is a man so utterly incompetent that merely hearing he had become mayor was, correctly, deemed sufficient reason for the Paw Patrol to relocate to Adventure City to be ready for the numerous inevitable disasters he will cause. While they do at least imply he only won because the opponent dropped out under mysterious circumstances his regular criminal activities should have disqualified him from running.
• Harley Quinn (2019): In season three, the Joker — one of the world's most feared supervillains who managed to take over Gotham City back in season one — becomes the mayor. While he has reformed, he should still have a criminal record, which is usually enough to disqualify someone from running.
• In the King of the Hill episode "Flush with Power", Hank is upset by the policies of the town's Board of Zoning and Resources. When he learns that he must be a member in order to propose certain topics at their meetings, he declares that he's going to run for a seat. When he goes to apply, he's informed by the clerk that he automatically gets the seat because one has been "open for years". The board naturally turns out to be corrupt and, once he accomplishes his goal, Hank resigns by the end of the episode.
• The Loud House: Downplayed in "Electshunned", where 17-year-old Leni Loud tries to run for mayor of Royal Woods. Although she doesn't win, the fact that someone as young as her was allowed to become a candidate is impossible in real life.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Impeach Fuzz", Fuzzy Lumpkins is elected mayor of Townsville while Mayor Mayor is busy launching a PR blitz (kissing babies, meeting voters, etc.), despite Fuzzy not even knowing he was in the running until he sees a newspaper that declared his victory.
• The Simpsons: In "Last Exit To Springfield," the International Brotherhood of Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs, and Nuclear Technicians trade union consider giving up their dental coverage in exchange for a free beer keg. Homer, using his actual brain for once, realizes he'd be forced to pay for Lisa's braces and convinces the union not to take the deal. That's all it takes for them to almost unanimously vote him in as union president, which takes place immediately (the previous president, who promised to "clean up the union," is apparently buried under Springfield Stadium).
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Whatever Happened to SpongeBob?"^note The alternative title is "WhoBob WhatPants?", SpongeBob traps the Bubble Poppin' Boys in a bubble, which sends them off. The people of New Kelp City are overjoyed that the gang is gone and the mayor gives SpongeBob the position of the new mayor even though SpongeBob has no idea what a mayor is (as he admits in his speech), and he's lost his memory as well.

Real Life

• A number of US elections have been won by dead people.^note These candidates were alive when they were put on the ballot, then died before the election. Upon the deceased's victory, another candidate from the same party was appointed.
• In 1938, Boston Curtis was elected as Republican precinct committeeman for Milton, Washington despite having no campaign. When the results were announced, voters were surprised to learn that they had just elected a donkey! The stunt was put on by the Democratic mayor to embarrass the Republican party and show that voters often "know not whom they support."
• Anyone can become the mayor of Hell, a small town in Michigan, for a day. Including a wonky cat. This ballot is mostly just for publicity and/or tourism gimmick, and the elected Mayors don't really fulfill any typical Mayoral duties or have any official authority.
• A number of dogs hold office of mayor in the United States, including Mayor Maximus Mighty-Dog Mueller II of Idyllwild, California, and Mayor Duke of Cormorant, Minnesota. In both cases they are "mayors" of unincorporated towns (i.e., towns with no local government), and said animals were elected as part of fundraising campaigns. That said, they do a better job than a lot of human mayors. Anchorage, Alaska, also has an honorary mayor position that was first held by a cat named Stubbs (after he died, the position was taken over by other cats named Denali and Aurora). He did a pretty good job too, but was attacked by a (presumably jealous) dog in 2013 so not everyone's a fan.
• Subverted when a candidate ran unopposed in a school board election, but lost anyway because he did not receive a single vote, even from himself.
• As part of his series "The Awful Truth", documentarian and filmmaker Michael Moore ran a Ficus Tree against the otherwise unopposed Republican incumbent Rodney Frelinghuysen for a seat in Congress. The election committee later refused to count the Ficus write-in votes, but the ones that were showed the Ficus having a 4-1 lead over Frelinghuysen.
• In 1967, the small town of Picoaza in Ecuador accidentally elected a brand of foot-powder as mayor.
• Parish and town councils (referred to as 'local councils', to distinguish them from principal local authorities which have larger budgets and responsibilities) in the UK. Candidates are often elected unopposed and councillors can be co-opted (appointed) to fill vacant seats unless people write to the Returning Officer asking for an election.

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