Ballot stuffing?
AP reporter Curt Woodward wrote a story yesterday about the now infamous online state quarter poll which was reprinted in this morning's Seattle P-I. The headline:
Ballots stuffed in online vote on state quarter design
Here's a question for whoever came up with this lousy headline: Since it's an online poll and there are no paper ballots, why would you want to use the phrase "ballot stuffing"?
(If you remember the election challenge last year, a number of Republicans accused Democrats - including party officials, Ron Sims, and the Governor herself - of cheating and committing fraud. And there were allegations of "ballot stuffing". Wingnuts would like people to believe there's some connection).
The right phrase to use would be freeping, but maybe the traditional media hasn't heard about that yet.
People like Stefan Sharkansky of unSoundPolitics have tried to draw a subtle parallel between this online state quarter poll and the 2004 gubernatorial election, which is pretty laughable.
It was obvious to anyone who examined the poll closely that something wasn't right because you could press your back button and vote again. However, the poll was set up that way intentionally. It wasn't a mistake:
We commend the State Quarter Advisory Commission for seeking public input, but we hope they realize that online polls have very serious drawbacks and can easily be manipulated.
(My favorite quarter design, by the way, is the third one down from the top).
Ballots stuffed in online vote on state quarter designHere's a question for whoever came up with this lousy headline: Since it's an online poll and there are no paper ballots, why would you want to use the phrase "ballot stuffing"?
(If you remember the election challenge last year, a number of Republicans accused Democrats - including party officials, Ron Sims, and the Governor herself - of cheating and committing fraud. And there were allegations of "ballot stuffing". Wingnuts would like people to believe there's some connection).
The right phrase to use would be freeping, but maybe the traditional media hasn't heard about that yet.
People like Stefan Sharkansky of unSoundPolitics have tried to draw a subtle parallel between this online state quarter poll and the 2004 gubernatorial election, which is pretty laughable.
It was obvious to anyone who examined the poll closely that something wasn't right because you could press your back button and vote again. However, the poll was set up that way intentionally. It wasn't a mistake:
The State Quarter Advisory Commission initially allowed an unlimited number of votes from a single Internet address so family members sharing a computer could each register their favorite, spokesman Mark Gerth said.Maybe they had good intentions, but they should have been aware of the freeping phenomenon. And while we're on the subject, polls can still be freeped even if there is a good mechanism set up to only allow one vote per computer or IP address. Sometimes such mechanisms can be defeated simply by deleting cookies.
We commend the State Quarter Advisory Commission for seeking public input, but we hope they realize that online polls have very serious drawbacks and can easily be manipulated.
(My favorite quarter design, by the way, is the third one down from the top).
