What was meant to be a more paw-sitive race this election season came to a ruff conclusion this past week, with a five-way tie in Seaport’s first-ever dog mayor election following concerns of voter fraud and online bullying.

Seaport’s “Bark the Vote,” a race for the office of the neighborhood’s principal pup, began with a pool of 175 dogs in August before later whittling down to just five candidates for the “Pooch Primaries,” held online from Oct. 15 and Oct. 30.

The mayor-elect would enjoy perks, such as complimentary shampoo deliveries during their term, a “skip the line” pass and discounts to various local businesses, their own oil painting portrait, and a ceremonial plaque that would be displayed on Barksworth Manor. The manor is a dog house to be constructed in Seaport’s Sea Green Park and unveiled at the March 2025 “InDOGuration,” according to the contest’s website. Additionally, Seaport was set to donate $2,000 to an animal rescue of the dog’s choice.

The election was conceived for a community development initiative by WS Development, a Massachusetts real estate developer. On Nov. 1 the race reached a dramatic conclusion after all five candidates were anointed co-mayors. 

In a statement, organizers said that each dog would receive the winner perks and $1,000 to donate to an animal rescue.

The decision followed community outcries about illegitimate voting and online harassment of candidates. 

In an official statement, the Bark the Vote Instagram, organizers of the election cited “suspicious votes that made final verification difficult” as the reason for the final decision. They also attributed “an overwhelming surge in voting,” which occurred on the last day of the campaign and resulted in the site crashing. 

The five finalists, Aspen (doodle), Bennett (golden retriever), Lady (doodle), Macie (golden retriever), and Rhubarb (maltipoo), all came into the competition with a similar story. But their owners have very different tails about how the race went down.

Justine Kim and Ben Bogan, parents of Lady, a 20-month-old goldendoodle, have been living in Seaport since 2022. Lady is their first dog together.

Like a majority of the candidates, the pair were inspired to enter Lady in the race after seeing promotional materials and representatives for the contest at Sea Green Park.

As voting was not limited to just Seaport residents, Lady and other contestants saw lots of success due to an outpouring of support from friends and relatives from all across the country. 

Despite this effort, in the early days of the voting, Aspen had jumped out as a clear front-runner, according to Kim.

“I think Aspen’s campaign was the most intense,” Kim said. 

“[His owner] was going around Boston during the day with a QR code and having people vote for him,” Kim said. She described the first day of the primaries as “a slow climb” with voting. 

The voting took place on a Seaport webpage and was protected with captcha software—which, according to Kim, may have been later exploited through the use of voting bots.

“I think each dog had at the end of the first day about a thousand votes, except for Rhu. Rhu was in last place and her owner messaged me freaking out, saying, ‘how is everybody getting all of these votes? I can’t keep up with these numbers,’” Kim said.

Additionally, Kim explained that on Oct. 16, after a DM conversation with Scarlet de Lemeny, the owner of Rhu, who is a 2-year-old Maltipoo, that “overnight, Rhu gets 5,000 votes and is in the first place.”

“And so ever since day two Rhu took the lead suspiciously after being in last place,” Kim said.

Bogan said that the volume and frequency of votes incoming for Rhu struck them as suspicious. 

“If you would check the vote count right before going to bed maybe midnight and then check it again at 8 a.m., [there was a] huge difference, which I think is very unlikely that thousands of people voted from midnight to 8 a.m.,” Bogan said, with Kim alleging similar voting behavior was also displayed in Bennett’s campaign.

De Lemeny remembers the start of the primaries very differently. 

She entered her seven-pound dog Rhubarb, known for her funny look and toothy smile, as a joke.

At first, de Lemeny described not taking the campaign too seriously. She made some stickers and posters, and canvassed local businesses and Seaport events. She spread funny slogans like “Hotties vote for Rhu,” and what would become Rhu’s defining slogan, her “BDE,” or “Big Dog Energy.” The terms originated from a comment that Rhu’s vet said when she was 12 weeks old.

De Lemeny said that the underdog spirit of Rhu’s campaign is what propelled her into the Pooch Primaries and success beyond.

“A derpy dog that was just spreading joy and didn’t have any ulterior motives … [people] wanted to be a part of it,” de Lemeny said. She also highlighted how Rhu was the only little dog in the race.

“I think just it was really clear that we were in it for the fun and just bringing joy to people at a time where people are really stressed and tensions are really high because of the real election,” de Lemeny said.

She added that endorsements from major Instagram accounts and some local news spots in the early days of the election helped boost Rhu to first place in the primaries and earn some brand endorsements for the four-legged candidate.

De Lemeny said that the first days of Rhu’s campaign didn’t have the slow start that Kim described.

“The first couple of days Rhu was in first, [we were] just so excited,” de Lemeny said. She credits social media outreach for launching Rhu into first place. 

Later, de Lemeny said that Rhu was overtaken by Lady in the first week of the race. According to her Rhu would fight for first place, but the site crashed ahead of schedule on Oct. 29.

“Kind of out of nowhere, Lady shot up and was in first or second for like another couple days, and then we started seeing a ton of shares from really really big accounts,” de Lemeny said. “Closer to the end it was Rhu and Lady that were in first and second and it was looking super tight.”

Leading up to the voter surge that crashed the site de Lemeny said, “it was looking like Rhu was going to win.”

However, she said Rhu’s chances of winning were quickly muzzled by another dog.

“We were noticing that this other dog was getting 500 votes a minute and we were like okay there’s no way that Rhu’s going to win from here,” de Lemeny said.

She said that it was suspicious to her that this dog with minimal social media presence was consistently receiving streams of votes, though declined to name specific competitors due to concerns of online harassment, which she said she also started receiving soon after Rhu took first place in the first week of competition.

“As soon as Rhu started doing better, my fiance and I were doxxed on the Seaport page and people were saying really crazy stuff that I worked for Seaport, that like this is an inside job,” de Lemeny, who works as a freelance consultant and is not affiliated with Seaport, said. 

De Lemeny also denied using bots or fake emails in the voting process.

“We did not do anything suspicious, nor would I even know how, I went to music school,” de Lemeny said, “like the stakes are not high enough to cheat.”

De Lemeny said that once comments started coming in, her account was flooded with so many messages that she couldn’t use her phone.

“It got to the point to where there were sexual harassment comments coming my way and connecting my name to the BDE slogan that we had for Rhu … it was just really scary and gross to see bullying over this kind of a thing,” de Lemeny said. “The prize is literally just nice treats and things for your dog.”

Madilyn Emerson, the owner of Macie, a one-year-old golden retriever, said she participated in social media callouts against suspected cheating candidates and was accused of online bullying.

“When people put this much time, energy, money, and effort into a campaign and there’s glaring cheating, I believe I have every right to call it on it,” Emerson said. She added that “there were no directed attacks whatsoever.”

Kim said that Emerson’s comments were criticism and not harassment.

“Her whole campaign was based on integrity and honesty … She kept commenting negative things. But I don’t think it was necessarily mean,” Kim said.

Most of the discourse had taken place on an official Seaport announcement reel. Negative comments and accusations of cheating have since been removed.

In an email from WS representatives to the contestants from Oct. 18, organizers said that “anyone who continues to engage in negative activity (online or in-person) will risk being disqualified from the election completely.” 

The same email also addressed claims of voter fraud saying, “We have set up an accessible, user-friendly voting platform that leverages multiple tools to maintain the integrity of the results.”

Seaport organizers denied cheating accusations and blamed the bullies, Bogan said.

“Look, the bullies were not being nice, but they were correct that there were bots involved,” he said.

De Lemeny said that other dog owners were using identifiable personal accounts or family members’ accounts to comment which should have been grounds for immediate disqualification, rather than a warning.  

Emerson stopped pursuing the race early on, after noticing suspicious voting behavior.

“I ended up taking a lot of my posters down and telling people this isn’t really something Macie really wants to be a part of,” Emerson said, adding “you can’t keep up with cheating.”

Seaport and WS organizers said in a statement that “the initiative was meant to spread kindness and positivity,” and maintained that they “emphasized that message throughout the duration of the program.”

Despite the drama, many of the owners said they still felt that message as well.

“If anything, I feel like I’m still stronger friends with other dog parents who are also upset about the situation,” Emerson said.

Bogan said he appreciated the outcome of the election.

“[The tie] rewarded Macie for staying honest and having integrity the whole time,” Bogan said. “I’m glad that she’s a winner. She was clearly the least likely to be cheating.”

Some said the election, in the end, served its main purpose of showing how much people love their dogs.

“They really get into it and so I think the community here is great,” said Kim. Though she said she wouldn’t do the election again.

De Lemeny described Seaport as a clean and beautiful utopia, but said the contest revealed a darker side.

“It turned into something where I’ve seen a really ugly side of people in my own neighborhood,”  de Lemeny said