Heath Haussamen
While most people were asleep on Saturday night, someone or a few someones hijacked NMPolitics.net’s weekly non-scientific poll. In a span of a few hours, about 800 votes were cast for Dennis W. Montoya.
Before that, the appellate judge race poll between Montoya and Linda Vanzi was nearly tied.
This isn’t the first time this has been a problem. Weeks ago, Democratic Lt. Gov. candidate Joe Campos’ campaign sent out a “poorly conveyed” message urging people to vote more than once in a poll – a message the campaign later said it didn’t intend to be worded that way. And in December, a poll on the approval of state Auditor Hector Balderas was manipulated.
Those are the three times I’ve caught it happening. I’m sure there have been others I missed.
It’s too easy to manipulate online polls that are open to voting by anyone. People can bypass a simple system designed to allow one vote per computer by clearing their browsers’ cookies after they vote.
Apparently, one person or a few people did that over and over and over and over again Saturday night.
That way of doing polling won’t continue on NMPolitics.net. I don’t know who manipulated the most recent poll and I’m not pointing the finger at anyone. In fact, I probably share some of the blame for this. I’ve allowed these polls to continue for quite some time understanding the potential for abuse and that other people took them more seriously than I did.
No more. As of today, you have to be a registered user of the site to vote in the weekly polls. Each registered user will be allowed one vote. That doesn’t totally prevent against future shenanigans, but it makes manipulation a lot more difficult. If this change doesn’t stop it, I may discontinue polls entirely. We’ll see.
If you’re not a registered user of the site, you can become one by clicking here.