Rigged internet polls...

Texas Monthly is running an internet poll on its home page, and it is generating a lot of votes (link). Here is a screen shot of the current results...

I doubt Texas Monthly has nearly that many people who even visit their website on any kind of regular basis, so this poll is clearly being rigged by someone who really likes Rick and someone who really likes Debra Medina. It is hard to imagine that Kay would only get 0.42% in something like this... she may not poll especially well amongst internet peeps, but she doesn't do that badly. I saw it over the weekend and Medina was way ahead. It was around 80% for Medina, 10 or 15% for Rick, a few percent for Kay, and a small number for "I'd write in myself."

Internet polls are gimmicky ways to get traffic to your website, but the Texas Monthly peeps obviously don't have the right kind of safeguards to prevent people from voting over and over. Either that or Rick and Debra Medina are the only candidates with any kind of enthusiasm and overzealous grassroots supporters behind them. I guess it is possible that Rick and Debra got their social networks buzzing, but I didn't see a whole lot from either of them on twitter either... but maybe I am following the wrong people on there.

I am on the email lists for all the candidates, and I didn't receive anything from any of the candidates about this poll.

If the Rick vs. Kay web traffic ever dips back below a few hundred eyeballs per day I may start putting regular internet polls just to get the overzealous supporters to sit there a their office desks clicking over and over... not to mention posting it online and forwarding it via email to friends...

In the meantime I am not sure what this Texas Monthly poll will prove other than Rick and Debra both have a few really dedicated peeps who are willing to stay up all night voting in a meaningless internet poll. Let's see if Debra surges back into the lead... Ron Paul was also really good at internet polls, and look what good that did him...