A confidential source tipped me off on a poll that seems to be responding – or to be more precise – not responding to negative votes. No matter how many “no” votes are entered, it seems stuck at 90 – 10 in favour
It’s currently hosted at the website of the Calvert government’s insipid “Raise A Flag” advertising campaign for a Saskatchewan Energy Accord. (Speaking of which – Lorne, you missed our chance. That brass ring breezed past your nose this spring while you were busy posing with and throwing your support behind the “Canadians don’t want an election now wait for Gomery while we shovel out the cash” Liberals. )
Moron.
Anyway, it hardly matters what the poll results are – Calvert has outlived his usefulness as far as Martin and Goodale are concerned. So go here and vote NO.
With the traffic that travels through here, a burst of SDA voting should swing that ratio very quickly.
I don’t want any whining about “cheating”. This is a technical experiment to establish whether this poll – paid for by Saskatchewan taxpayers – is rigged. We should know within a few hours.
(PS – you’re welcome to record your votes in the comments, for the purpose of getting a rough idea of how many we’ve cast).
Update: From the comments;
Anonalogue;
The poll appears to be a module of a content management system called Mercury CMS from a Regina company TMC. From the website:
Polling Module
“Get realtime data on the attitudes, opinions, and thoughts of your website visitors. Create Opinion Polls fast and easy using the Mercury CMS Poll Admin Tools. View your Poll results as they are calculated and respond quickly to make changes.”
http://mercury-cms.com/index.cfm?page=4
David Simpson pulled up the source code.
I just checked the source code for the results page and the 90% Yes and 10% No are hard coded into the page. Vote all you want, it won’t change.
I’ve saved a copy and a screenshot.
Wednesday update: The “Raise a flag” poll has been lowered down the pole. Something tells me we haven’t heard the last of this…
Voted no and no change. This pretty much illustrates why I put zero faith in polls.
Voted NO, still 90/10
C’mon folks, your’e not supposed to have an opinion, at least not one that isn’t authorised by the nanny state.
If they would like to tell us that they think 90% of us SHOULD think that way, that would be one thing. But what they’re telling us is that 90% of us DO think that way.
And that’s just plain lying to us.
If their ideas are so good, why do they need to lie to us about them? And why do they spend our money to lie to us?
I looked at the poll earlier, it was 77% NO, 33% Yes, to a rather stupid question.
From 7:03 to now 47 votes..Hmmm,
This poll is correct and exact to withing + or – two percent in 2 times out of five.
Forcast accuracy is 100 % reult: 10% for and 90% against. Flip that if you wish. We want to please everyone.
Poll validated by the Poll standards advisory committee Ottawa Canada. TG
I’m part of the 10% that voted no. But of course it might not be counting us Yanks.
Voted NO, and it’s still 90/10! I honestly don’t know why they’d bother with the rigging, though. “Fair” must simply mean “good,” right?
Still 90% yes, 10% no as of 9:35 PM EST.
I voted no twice, and the poll didn’t call me on it the second time, even though it says “Users can only vote once per poll”. Just to be sure, I voted no a third time after clearing my cookies (Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4).
I can assure folks that many more than 40ish votes have been cast since the results were pegged to 90 – 10.
Oh. Misunderstood you Tony. Nevermind.
Another No . . .
Still 90/10 at 9:55 EST. Cheers. Eric.
another 2 No’s here
Another “No”… still 90 – 10
2 more no votes and still 90-10.
Still 90-10 after my vote.
so who are the nine people who vote yes every time I vote no?
90/10 after my NO vote
90% yes, 10% no, at 8pm in Calgary what a bunch of maroons! Congratulations Saskatchewan glad your tax dollars are still very hard at work. Make sure you turn out the lights when you leave Kate.
Could be rigged….could be just a phoney non-functioning page!!!!
Any way voted using different IP conections and no change…..also e-mailed to the contact us link with complaint.
If this was actually illegal I’d care a bit….
90-10
But…you know I would support the initiative.
I just voted “No”. 90-10 when I voted.
Voted NO!
What we need is some spray to get rid of these fools.
Electorate Spray
And Visit Duke’s Place for a laugh once in a while.
Will you people please stop voting no? Do you realize how many times I have had to flush my cache and vote “yes” just to maintain the 90-10 ratio?
voted no , still reading 90-10
socket
voted ‘no’ @ 10:30 est.
still 90/10….
I just voted ‘no’
voted no a 7:40 pm pacific. Still showing 90-10
Ditto. Still 90/10. Typical of NDP ethics.
Voted NO, 90/10 hasn’t moved.
A no from me, still 90-10
Glad to pitch in. I voted No even though I happen to agree with it. Still 90-10 in favour.
Cheers
Got my no vote.
Now that the rat is in the trap, let’s hurry up and put it out of its misery. Quick and humane like.
I just checked the source code for the results page and the 90% Yes and 10% No are hard coded into the page. Vote all you want, it won’t change
Code follows
Complete our poll
Do you think Saskatchewan deserves a fair
Energy Accord?
Yes (90%)
No (10%)
Take the
Poll
NOTE: Users can only vote once per
poll
“Could be rigged….could be just a phoney non-functioning page!!!”
Well it seems odd that when I press “vote” without selecting yes or no it still takes me to the result page. That should be prevalidated with javascript anyway. I can’t see anything wrong when I View Source but I’m not a front end guy.
No doubt tomorrow morning it will be claimed this is a malfunction. “Baloney, let’s see the Visual Source Safe timestamped code check-ins on the .cfm files” might be one response.
The poll appears to be a module of a content management system called Mercury CMS from a Regina company TMC. From the website:
Polling Module
“Get realtime data on the attitudes, opinions, and thoughts of your website visitors. Create Opinion Polls fast and easy using the Mercury CMS Poll Admin Tools. View your Poll results as they are calculated and respond quickly to make changes.”
http://mercury-cms.com/index.cfm?page=4
Always happy to help out by expatriatically voting NO – still 90-10 yet I’m shocked, shocked that anybody could think a government official might rig a poll.
Just voted no… still 90-10.
Voted No Still 90/10
Voted No -Still 90-10. Must be the same pollster(s) as the Libranos use.
Juts voted No – “results” still 90/10
I just voted (twice) and it is still sitting at 90/10, doubt it’s going to move.
You are right, but every thinking person knows that most polls are fixed. Granted, most are not so blatant. NDPs are just Liberals in a rush, so we should not be surprised when they employ similar tactics.
Kate.
Voted no. Stayed at 90-10.(Surprise!)
You’re the best, Kate.
Hi Kate. Earlier today, the poll was actually working. Unfortunately for the NDP, it was running about 76% no to 24% yes. Then, at about 12:30 pm, it suddenly changed to 90-10 for yes. So either thousands of people voted over the noon hour (not) or someone hard-wired a more favourable result into the poll (which you appear to have proven).
Aren’t you glad the NDP is spending $300,000 of your taxpayers’ dollars to advertise this excellent website?
Yes Kate, you are the best. Add me as one who also voted no.
Got my no – no change – no surprise!
Well, my “No” just boosted the percentage to:
10%! There’s a surprise…
caught like Rats at the Alberta border.
does the Sask. energy accord account for consorting with the Chinese national petroleum company and none of us “capitalist pigdogs and our craven lackeys”
Notice “home” page, actually named home.htm, (I guess that would be patrie.htm for the bi-lingual version))has link to “TODAY�S POLL”. What’s tommorow’s poll?
Should medical data from MRIs in Alberta be BANNED access by Saskatchewan doctors?
Don’t laugh. Was proposed from the floor at last weekend’s Congress of SKoviets in Regina.