Saturday, January 3, 2009

Vote Tampering

Is this a sign of what is to come in the 2009 Fall River elections -

The Herald News offered a poll today on their website "Mayor's first year." I voted at noon, and along with most (73 other people), I indicated Correia was "Failing." At that time about 7% of the approximately 90 voters thought he was was doing an "Outstanding" job. I was a little surprised that there were about 6 people left that thought he was doing an outstanding job but realized they were probably relatives.

Around 3:00 I went back to check the results and noticed a large spike in "Outstanding" votes. Soon after this the Herald News posted a message that, "This poll was reset at approximately 3:30 p.m., because of multiple votes from individual IP addresses. The ability to vote multiple times from a single IP address has now been disabled."

Sad? Desperate? Both?

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is Chappy still in charge of the city elections?

shamrock said...

I believe so. He hasn't been replaced.

Anonymous said...

http://answers.polldaddy.com/viewPoll.aspx?msg=commentAdd&id=1244054#comment157408

Anonymous said...

There is also a comment section when you vote in ths poll.

Anonymous said...

You could also have a field day with the mayors youtube video self evaluation of his first year in office.

http://www.heraldnews.com/multimedia?vid_id=oQNlOvdcCso

Anonymous said...

This is another example how Mayor Correia (and his supporters) take things to the extreme.

Earlier in the day "Outstanding" had 8 votes, while "Failing" and "Needs Improvement" had large leads receiving 63% and 16% of the votes, respectively.

A few hours later the votes were so skewed that "Outstanding" and "Above Average" had surpassed "Failing."

In other words, if you're going to manipulate the vote of an online poll, at least make the results plausible. It was obvious when seemingly all the votes in a 3 hour period either voted for "Outstanding" or "Above Average."

Now that the Herald News has restricted votes by IP Address, the current results are 16 for "Failing" and 4 for "Outstanding."

Anonymous said...

I find it ironic that the mayor, or his family/friends, would resort to this behavior since he has been quite vocal about his distaste for "anonymity"!

Anonymous said...

You know these blogs are starting to bother people!! They keep mentioning us on wsar! Lets keep up the good fight. All I hear is how we are a bunch of cowards because we choose to be anonymous. They however get there behind there beloved radio stations and have hours upon hours to tell lies and half truths. If they don't like what you have to say they cut you off. THAT IS A TRUE COWARD.

Anonymous said...

Now that the Herald News has restricted votes by IP Address, the current results are 16 for "Failing" and 4 for "Outstanding."



If the Herald News is telling the truth as to why they "adjusted" vote totals. One thing is certain. The "adjusted" totals agteee with the paper's editorial view. Surprised?

Anonymous said...

No I am not shocked that one of Bob Correia's supporters would try to vote over and over again to say the he has been doing an outstanding job. Their desperation to try to slant a meaningless poll is funny but the Herald News did the right thing to reset it otherwise the meaningless poll would have been even more meaningless.

Anonymous said...

LEFT for Mayor

Anonymous said...

Sorry : LEFTY FOR MAYOR

Anonymous said...

Why not Lefty for Mayor? Or city council? He manages his blog with the respect and integrity one would like in an elected offical.

Anonymous said...

I agree we need a person like Lefty. I know I would vote for him.

Anonymous said...

If the Herald News is telling the truth as to why they "adjusted" vote totals. One thing is certain. The "adjusted" totals agree with the paper's editorial view. Surprised?


I think we can count on EVERY poll The Herald does coming out JUST the way The Herald wants it to.

FRC said...

Yes, I agree.

The Herald News somehow has the power to manipulate people into choosing the answer that the Herald News wants.

Anonymous said...

The Herald News somehow has the power to manipulate people into choosing the answer that the Herald News wants.



Nope. But they've got the popwer to eliminate the votes they DON'T want

FRC said...

They eliminated a surge of votes because it was multiple votes from the same computer.

When the poll was reset, everyone was allowed to vote once.

Sorry that you don't like the result, but the fault is not with the Herald News.

Anonymous said...

Talk about the "pot" calling the kettle black. If you read Shamrocks post at all you would realize it was someone plunking the votes for the mayor.

Anonymous said...

They eliminated a surge of votes because it was multiple votes from the same computer.



That's what they said.

FRC said...

Anonymous,

Once the poll was reset, why didn't the hundreds of people who voted "Outstanding" for Mayor Correia's performance return to vote for the reset poll?

In fact, once the poll was reset, the vote distribution returned to a similar distribution before Mayor Correia received 300 Outstanding votes within 3 hours.

I suppose it is just coincidence that 90% of the votes for those 3 hours were for "Outstanding" and all of these hundreds of people failed to return to vote again.

Amazing.

Anonymous said...

I thought one of Mayor Bob's many infamous quotes during the mayoral campaign was that he didn't see the internet and websites as being all the important? Is Stone Age Bob coming around or does one of his supporters disagree and that's why they voted so many times in an online poll? Funny, it's hard to imagine any of Bob's "people" disagreeing with him, dissent is not tolerated.