The Numbers

May I offer a piece of advice. There are several easy steps that can be taken to prevent most of the "clicks" as you call it. Most of these can be filtered through 1 Vote per IP address. Though, this is not failsafe, it is difficult for the average tech savvy user to do in large numbers.

You mentioned that these polls were for entertainment purposes only. If this is the case, why would you even have these polls? I would surely hope you wouldn't be using the political stage to generate click-thru Ad revenue for ABC.com. That poses another ethical problem for the mainstream networks.

Click Polls have been an internet staple for a long time. I find it astonishing that anyone would take them seriously. They are purely entertainment. As are the call this number polls.

Michael,

One click per IP doesn't work since you could have thousands of truly unique people coming from one behind one Proxy Server.

One click per IP REALLY doesn't work, because my ISP - like many others - assigns me a random IP everytime I turn on my modem or type "ipconfic/renew" on the command line.

Robert: One click per IP does work. A proxy server is just a single IP that other people connect to. It's to mask their OWN IP address so it appears that the requests are coming from the single proxy server IP.

Mike: Sure some ISP's assign random IP numbers, but remember it's your modem that receives this IP address and passes it along to your router or computer. There is also a MAC address (Physical hardware address) that the ISP's use to monitor which modems are accessing the network. They link the MAC address to YOU and the IP address is simply so your modem/computer can live on the internet.

Now they may assign dynamic IP addresses. Most ISP's will assign you the same IP address, all the time. Even if you do a ipconfig/renew. All this does is refresh your IP which, most likely will be the same IP address that is in the ISP's index.

This would then lead to the argument that Ron Paul supporters are going to such lengths to mess with online polls. And you are calling us conspiracy theorists.

This argument just does not hold water. What does hold water is the sheer number of people that are donating VIA the internet to Ron Pauls campaign. I'm sure this translates into online polling results...wouldn't you think?

I really think there's an alternative explanation that makes a whole lot more sense.

Namely, that a disproportionate percentage of web-savvy Americans favor Paul and Kucinich. Folks who aren't web-savvy are more likely to follow the folks in the "traditional media" spotlight.

Travis:

That may be true to a certain extent. So shouldn't people report that as the case instead of claiming that the Paul & Kucinich supporters are a rogue group of internet hackers inflating polls?

My personal belief is that the true poll numbers are an average between traditional media and the new media. If this is really the case, then people have to know that looking at a single source (media) for poll results is skewed one side to the other. They should be average and not discounted.

I realize that online polls are supposed to be viewed as purely for entertainment, but in a country where candidates promise to stand up to the health insurance companies, shaking their fists at them with one hand and taking money from them with the other, I must admit that when I saw that Dennis Kucinich had won the ABC online poll after the Iowa debate, I felt more entertained than I have felt in a long time. Please, at least humor us. Heartland America may not be able to overcome the corporate sponsored media, and the health insurance lobby money machine, and Diebold, but can't they at least let us revel in the results of one online poll? ABC should at least let us dream our dreams, even if they are determined to do everything in their power to keep them from coming true.

Read between the lines, people. If it were just a matter of self-selection, then this blog entry would have been about the unreliable nature of polling that depends on self-selection. And ABC News clearly doesn't want to add any perceived validation to an already subjective poll by limiting it to "one click per IP." That would just give the nuts more fodder to attempt to validate the results in some way.

The story between the lines here is that the numbers were obviously so high for Kucinich and Paul (probably in the 99-1 freeping range mentioned in the blog entry), that they can't merely be attributed to self-selection, and could only have been produced by clever machinations on the part of someone or ones on the Internet. Perhaps it was reverse freeping designed to make those two candidates look more ridiculous for thinking that these ratings are meaningful. Perhaps supporters of the other candidates weren't interested in the results of a meaningless survey so early in the election cycle, and so refrained from their own clever tricks. At any rate, anyone who thinks that these ratings should be taken seriously in any way should go read a statistics textbook, and then go learn how computers work.

"web-savvy Americans favor Paul and Kucinich"

Hmm... Shall we have a poll on that?

Let's just agree that supporters of Paul and Kucinich would really like that to be true -- but it ain't necessarilly so.

What about the part where ABC resets their polls when they don't like who's winning?

I'm a democrat, and I support Ron Paul. No, we aren't a bunch of spammers, we just really love his message, he speaks the truth.
So all you people: Stop being good democrats, stop being good republicans, start being good Americans. Do what's right, look into things for yourselves on truly independent news sites (a.k.a. Not owned by Rupert Murdoch) Think for yourselves, it's not that difficult.

Thank you so much ABC for providing more free publicity to Paul and Kucinich! The editors must be pushing you reporters hard to get this story out! I can empathize. The authoritarian "because we said so" is now obsolete and obtuse. Eighth grade politicing doesn't work with an informed
public.

IP addresses don't work any longer to verify one vote. Too many public use computers, you would be shutting out anyone using those.
second is many people, even the non tech savvy use programs such as tor which pings us all over the world every sec.
I have seen online polls that there is no way thousands have logged on to vote, one vote.
third, if you are sitting at your computer voting in online polls instead of hitting the streets for your candidate, then I really doubt he will win.

If for amusement purposes only, why would you play entertainment games with real candidates and in a real election? You are a real news outlet and you play games, in an election?

ABC flashes those numbers everywhere, including mentions in live news stories. Entertainment my behind.

Im afraid dear MSM that you are slowly losing the internet. Thing is, people can view ALL the opinions on certain issues. When this happens, with complete freedom of information, Ron and Dennis win with a landslide. If everyone had full access to all the info, then the results would be seen on a national scale. But as u know, the demographics are not like this. Most people just take your word for things and don't have a clue whats going on. One day this will change, I hope its in my lifetime.

One should also point out that elections themselves are a "self-selection process" and presumably "unscientific". Then again, it won't surprise me, when I go to vote for Ron Paul in the New York primary, to see the words "for entertainment purposes only".
And just for the record, I think "Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf" is a perfectly sound choice for People Magazine's insipidly stupid "Most Beautiful Person of the Year".

I'm rather discouraged that so many American people are so ignorant. However, it goes hand in hand with the idea that people believe what they want to believe, even when they are shown irrefutable evidence that they are wrong. How else could so many self-proclaimed Communists be alive and well today?

The fact is that everyone who has replied to this article, myself included, has an agenda. Some of you have risen to the bait and taken offense that anything about your candidate should smell even slightly rotten. Others have criticized ABC and threatened to sue (frequently an overused and self-incriminating response).

None have realized that ABC has left their hate mail posted here for all the world to see. Perhaps Osama was right when he decreed that freedom of speech was a falsehood. Here I see nothing but freedom of speech and am surrounded by ignorant masses who cannot recognize that not only are they privileged, but they clog the very source of their freedom with their incessant braying.

How about putting a cork in it? Besides, the sad reality is that you are just one in more than six billion other ants on this hill. You will die and hardly a soul will blink, while those who make a difference in the greater scheme of things will not stoop so low as to whine about a foolish entertainment poll. Whining to a poll company will not change your candidate's standing in anyone eyes, especially mine.

Josh Eggar,
I believe America has been waking up for the last several years. This example of media power only holds back the truths. People aren't giving just hate mail. They are dissatisfied with media outlets they have trusted for many years. Remember, we own the airwaves, and we expect fair reporting. It only takes a minority of people with passion to change the world. Remember great leaders like Ghandi, MLK, Jesus, ect. We are not insignificant cattle, but unique snowflakes and now it's the winter of the 2008 election. We see the state of America and the world, and notice the major news outlets just want to entertain us. So, we write to people like Mr. Langer , to make a change. However, some are in disgust as ABC may have violated this trust in the airwaves that WE own.

This was a message to ABC about making Dennis Kucinich nearly INVISIBLE in their so-called "debate." In REAL debates each side is given equal amount of time to speak. I agree with getoverit that these news stations throw these polls around all the time!