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Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Ajax Phillips and Daniel Joseph Watkins, based on the book Freak Power: Hunter S. Thompson's Campaign for Sheriff written by Watkins. The film follows journalist Hunter S. Thompson and his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, against the incumbent sheriff Carol Whitmire, whose crackdown on marijuana and loitering aimed to incarcerate and intimidate young hippies, or "freaks", into leaving the area. Thompson created and ran under the third party "Freak Power" ticket, with the strategy of registering hundreds of young voters who had never before participated in the democratic process.