Stuffing the Ballot Box

Until today, we believed that the polls we had posted on the site would be honourably used. We were not aware that they could be so easily manipulated. As of 9 AM (EDT) this morning, our poll on the question ‘Would you vote for the “Home School Non-Discrimination Act of 2005″‘ had a total of 11 votes (each from a different internet address) as follows:

yes – as it stands – 0 votes
yes – with changes – 0 votes
no – 11 votes

Beginning at approximately 9:30 AM (EDT) 11 votes were cast from two internet addresses within the same organization in a period of 1 hour 2 minutes and 51 seconds. All of these votes were for the ‘yes – as it stands’ option. There were additional votes cast for the same option from the same organization later in the day. In both instances, it seems the aim was to balance the vote to a 50% because after each instance the votes were balanced to 50% ‘no’.

In the course of testing the polling process, I also cast more than 1 vote. I took the time to tally the remaining votes (based on unique internet addresses) after my votes and the offending organization’s votes were removed. That tally is as follows:

yes – as it stands – 5 votes
yes – with changes – 2 votes
no – 15 votes

I have been able to determine who the owner of one of the two addresses is. I considered outing them. Then I considered reading them the riot act without identifying them. The final decision I made was to tell them to get their own blog. The offending organization will be permanently banned from viewing this site.

UPDATE: Here’s the new poll link in case you missed it.

You MUST be a registered forum user to vote, and you will only be allowed to vote ONCE. Be sure to read the Registration Agreement before joining the forum.