Hill supporters accused of manipulating poll
May 3, 2012
In an apparent attempt to keep Adam Hill seated as 3rd District San Luis Obispo County Supervisor, several supporters allegedly used unethical methods to vote multiple times in a New Times poll. [NewTimes]
The weekly poll question asked, “Which of these candidates for SLO County Supervisor has your vote?” Answers included 3rd District candidates Adam Hill and Ed Waage and 5th District candidates Debbie Arnold and Jim Patterson.
On April 28, Waage took a small lead over Hill with about 150 votes in. The Democratic Central Committee responded by sending an email to members explaining how to manipulate the vote by cleaning cookies and voting repeatedly.
Shortly afterwards, it appeared someone was using an automatic program. From about 8:30 p.m. until midnight, approximately three votes a minute were made in favor of Hill.
Waage supporter Kevin Rice, also a recipient of the committee email, checked to see if turning cookies off allowed a second vote, and then called several media outlets including the New Times and CalCoastNews to report the apparent crooked voting.
“It was very clear someone was using an automatic program because the votes were coming in consistently and then it just stopped,” Rice said “It looks like team Adam Hill shares the same ethics as their candidate.”
In the end, 86 percent of those votes, roughly 5,396, went to Hill with the other three candidates receiving between 4 percent to 5 percent of the vote.
In today’s New Times, the Shredder wrote that its “IT guy” discovered that 5,349 votes were made from just three IP addresses.
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