AOL Spinning Their Poll

[Patriot123]

If anyone has been watching the AOL straw poll, every few hours or so it seems to go offline, goes all wack, and then it comes back online a few minutes later, with Paul back a couple votes in a few states, and Huckabee and Giuliani ahead.

Something needs to be done about this. I've been watching this, and this is a blatant manipulation of the poll, either on AOL's behalf, or on Huckabee supporters behalf.

[Patriot123]

Bump.

It's getting really darn bad, now. If anyone is reading this, view the poll, and get voting, quickly. This poll is rigged. http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2007/12/21/straw-poll-dec-21-jan-4/?ncid=NWS00010000000001

[Kingfisher]

bump

[Feelgood]

I just posted something very nasty about this to AOL in the comments section. Did you see that suddenly McCain picked up a state? He hasnt had a state the entire run of this poll, now suddenly he has a state? Unreal.

[Claire]

The thing we noticed is that the states that someone else is "winning" is usually actually a tie. Guiliani is (relatively) legitimately ahead in NY and NJ - everything else is a tie when you click on the state. I am beginning to think the most important message we need to get out is "make your own paper ballot receipt." I think the votes are there, many times over. But how can we assure an acurate count?

[SimpleName]

Right now, it is working perfectly. Ron Paul is at 30% with Giuliani back at 17% like reality. Paul has everywhere except Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey where Giuliani is winning and Massachusetts where Romney is winning. That seems to be about what I'd expect in a real national poll, so nothing wrong at the moment. I'll have to check back in a bit to see if it stays that way.

[Patriot123]

Pretty sad, how my home state is for Giuliani... Makes me wanna' puke.

[Shiva_Rodriguez]

I'm not very computer savvy, but I had a thought on this AOL poll.

It's not 100% spam proof. I've got four Ron Paul supporters in my house and each one of us has been able to cast our individual vote using our different computers on the same line. I've read essays by others about how multiple voting is just a matter of clearing cookies.

Since I'm guessing the folks at AOL would at least be in the know about such quirks in the system by now, I wonder if perhaps they are going through periodically and deleting multiple votes made from the same location? Is there some sort of a program that could do that as a filter? Would that account for the periodic changes that seem unlikely otherwise?

Just a thought. I believe AOL has already promoted its poll as being "unspamable" and I imagine they'd take care to see that it is.

[matratzac]

haha now paul has all but 2 states

[Goldwater Conservative]

If AOL doesn't want people voting multiple times, it should limit voting to once per IP address.

Unfortunately, AOL customers (all 12 of them...) have dynamic IPs, which would mean multiple votes for them alone.

[Battlecruiser]

Take screenshots for proof.

[Minuteman]

There are threads on Hucksarmy forums where people are admitting to voting multiple times. One guy said he sat up and voted 200 times for one state.

Shane N Post subject: Re: Poll: AOL Straw Poll Vote MikePosted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:05 pm


Corporal

Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:04 pm
Posts: 68 Easiest way is to disable cookies and once you vote, you refresh. I had a free (and very boring) 30 minutes that I just spent giving ND ~200 votes to put him above of RP (probably will last 5 minutes).



GrannyT Post subject: Re: Poll: AOL Straw Poll Vote MikePosted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 9:55 am


Corporal

Joined: Sat Dec 08, 2007 11:08 am
Posts: 69
Location: South Beloit, IL I confess, I tried, it worked. I've voted twice. (once yesterday, once today) Hey, I do live in Illinois. You know vote often, vote dead Could that be how Paul is getting so many votes

_________________
Psalms 144:1 "Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:" (usually by typing)



GrannyT Post subject: Re: Poll: AOL Straw Poll Vote MikePosted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:08 pm


Corporal

Joined: Sat Dec 08, 2007 11:08 am
Posts: 69
Location: South Beloit, IL Shane N wrote:
Easiest way is to disable cookies and once you vote, you refresh. I had a free (and very boring) 30 minutes that I just spent giving ND ~200 votes to put him above of RP (probably will last 5 minutes).

I guess that explains my being able to vote twice. My computer tech son disabled my cookies and I don't know how to enable them. (need to go on a diet anyway ) My son also told me to refresh and run the cleaner often.

_________________
Psalms 144:1 "Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:" (usually by typing)

[Luft97]

When this poll came out I made a post and proved it was very easy to vote as many times as you want. I removed how to do it after the fact to prevent spamming by everyone. This poll is not representative at all. I don't belive Clinton has that many supporters ;)

[IcyPeaceMaker]

The real poll is in Iowa & NH, very soon. AOL sucks, everybody with a brain knows they're evil.