Cheating the election

[Sheik]

I opened up the election poll for president today and found that Ninot was ahead by just one vote. Then it occured to me that I could easily determine who won the race (I think) even though I had already voted. What stops someone from making a different hotmail account and setting up a new Apolyton account and voting again, or even worse running for two positions and winning? Is there anyway that we can be sure people don't have multiple acounts, especially with programs that allow you to be anonymous online?

[Ninot]

its a real problem, and there are suspicions that double logins DID effect this election in one way or the other.

We cant do much to fight it, unless we get another way to elect people.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ninot
We cant do much to fight it, unless we get another way to elect people.

Exactly.

I made a study of new members (yesterday?, since the page now displays 0 new registrations for 'today'). I came up with at least 20 candidates for DLhood (absolute minimum information entered or nearly, and 0 posts).

[Akron]

Isn't there something involving IP addresses that allows the mods to determine whether an account is a DL? Anyway, I really hope people would not go to such trouble just for a position in a game on an internet forum.

[notyoueither]

Yes they can Akron.

However, I don't think it is reasonable to expect that they (a very limited number of they) baby sit our elections and constitutional polls. They are kept quite busy elsewhere.

[Harovan]

If you are dialup customers of a big provider company with several large ranges of dynamic IP addresses, a new dialup will give you a completely different IP. Now, if you use a free national mail service outside the USA (IMHO Hotmail accounts are refused by the site), and there are plenty of them, and you disallow cookies, it should be possible to make as many Poly accounts as you want.

[disorganizer]

it definitely is. and if you use a public proxy or any other kind of "anonymizer" then you could easily also prevent the mods from detecting you. if you then change you account on weekly or daily base, you also have enough posts to not be detected.
=> no way to prevent it.

but another thing:
maybe some only joined apo for the demogame? and maybe some of them only watch for the beginning, until they get more informed?
just a try to explain this.


btw:
an even easier way would be to call for help to some other forum members to cast voted in the elections, even if they are no members and just dont care.
if you know 20 ppl, you could cast 20 additional votes ;-)

[notyoueither]

Poly does accept hotmail now. They accepted my account. in Aug of last year.

[Papa Chubby]

Are we going to assume that there are people, fellow brothers, that are such inbreed wretches that they would actually cheat in this game of ours. I would be far more willing to accept the fact that some other Poly users paid us a visit and voted just for the hell of it.

[Guardian]

I agree with Papa Chubby.

Anyway, let's not talk about cheating here.

Let's just face the fact that our present system has its flaws and see if we can improve it or come up with a better one.

[civman2000]

markg investigated and found no signs of cheating

[Sheik]

MarkG has a post on page 10 of the presidential election thread that talks about the poll briefly. You can see it here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1127733#post1127733

[Aro]

The Internet is like the real world, there's always someone trying to cheat, somewhere. But, in this case,

Originally posted by civman2000
markg investigated and found no signs of cheating

We need to rush our Supreme Court.

[Aro]

And I agree whith Guardian:

Originally posted by Guardian
Let's just face the fact that our present system has its flaws and see if we can improve it or come up with a better one.

In a matter of fact, democracy isn't a perfect system, is just the better one. Democracy is good because it is always under construction, always being improved, and because we have the possibility to do this and change the things. In other systems this is not allowed.
Despite all this mess, the discussion comes out and it is good for all of us.

PS: My english isn't good, so you guys feel free to correct me. Hey! What I'm saying? You will probabily do that, with or without my approvation...

[Kuciwalker]

I think the election is really screwed up. It no longer shows who the Citizens want, as almost a hundred people from outside voted randomly.