West believes he is best for himself

Kanye West had a sound reason for voting for himself in the US presidential race: he is the only person he truly trusts. His bigger rivals would probably support his reasoning. West did not even run as an independent but, instead, took advantage of an electoral peculiarity in the US called a ‘write in candidacy’, in effect actually penning in his name on the ballot paper and then voting for himself in Wyoming.

Ballot papers in the US have several spaces for write-in candidates as voters typically have to elect contenders for several posts at one go, so West should have sought election to a more modest office though he had filed to be listed as a presidential candidate in 12 of the 50 US states. Having reportedly spent $10.3 million on his campaign and not notched up even a fraction of a point in the national vote count, a county office post could have been some consolation for West. Write-in candidates have won elections in the US before, although not in presidential races to date. But West may have been buoyed by the fact that since 1984, votes for write in candidates have increased five times. Wyoming has since been ‘called’ for Donald J Trump. It is unlikely, however, that the rapper’s unilateral act weighed on the incumbent president’s mind when he railed about voting fraud some hours into the counting process.