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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday September 28 2016, @03:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the stuffing-the-ballot-box dept.

You may be getting trolled right now without even knowing it.

Donald Trump supporters artificially manipulated the results of online polls to create a false narrative that the Republican nominee won the first presidential debate on Monday night.

The efforts originated from users of the pro-Trump Reddit community r/The_Donald and 4chan messaged boards, which bombarded around 70 polls, including those launched by Time, Fortune, and CNBC.

In this latest incarnation, multiple Reddit users enlisted the Trump-supporting masses on r/The_Donald, which has over 200,000 subscribers, by posting dozens of online polls that are vulnerable to vote brigading, bots, and other forms of manipulation that make these non-scientific surveys notoriously unreliable.

Polls that were not open to public voting consistently put Clinton ahead of Trump. In a flash poll by Public Policy Polling, Clinton led Trump 51 to 40. A CNN/ORC poll conducted immediately following the debate found significantly stronger support for Clinton, who topped Trump 62 to 27.

http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/trump-clinton-debate-online-polls-4chan-the-donald/


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  • (Score: 1) by stretch611 on Wednesday September 28 2016, @10:33AM

    by stretch611 (6199) on Wednesday September 28 2016, @10:33AM (#407317)

    I agree, this type of poll rigging seems doomed to fail. While we do not necessarily go for the underdog here in the US (and sadly, they seem to generally go for the popular one to be on the winning side) Making the race seem closer than it really is will only increase turnout.

    When people feel their candidate will win by a large margin, many will stay home and not vote. If the race appears to be a close battle it will only increase voter turnout and all the hillary supporters will get off their ass and vote.

    Personally, i hope for low voter turnout... to increase the percentage of 3rd party results. I doubt they will win... But I will go out and vote 3rd party... Once they get a significant margin, people may start thinking 3rd parties might become viable.

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P