Monday, November 05, 2007

From Anonymous Attack Mailings to Online Ballot Box Stuffing

There's a poll running in the upper-right-hand corner of Brighton Centered about whether or not John Connolly, candidate for Boston City Councilor-At-Large, should apologize for sending anonymous mailings attacking opponent Councilor Stephen Murphy.

The results have been neck-and-neck for the last 24 hours between "Yes," "No," and "I don't care" (politics as usual), with "Yes" ahead by a small margin.

That is, until now.

As of a couple of hours ago, one of my browsers has a snapshot of the interim results. I just looked at them a minute ago... and somebody has been voting like mad with "I don't care" answers.



Few Hours AgoCurrentlyDifference
Yes, he should also apologize for it1720+3
No, admitting his campaign was involved was enough.1418+4
I don't care -- this is just the way politics works.1339+26
Who's John Connolly?57+2


I've highlighted in bold-face the statistically implausible increase in votes.

Ummmm... anyone care to guess who's behind this ballot box stuffing? And why does he want to make it look like people online "don't care"? You would think whomever is behind it has better things to do -- like making phone calls to get out your vote -- than scheming to vote multiple times on some two-bit blog's poll.

Post comments below with your guesses as to who is behind it. Please no profanity or offensive statements.


EDIT: and in the few minutes since I put up this post, he keeps adding more votes to the "I don't care" column. Methinks "Mr. I don't care" is named Pierre (copyright Maurice Sendak):

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