This was a pretty exciting contest. As you can see from the graph, the leading entries had a really tight race going!

Votes counted: 86

POST CONTEST COMMENTS: As you may have noticed, one of the contestants was disqualified. This was a difficult decision for me, because I knew that it would upset the contestant and invalidate some votes which had been legitimately cast for the entry. The count total for third place votes reflects this, and also the fact that a number of voters did not cast third place votes.

My reason for disqualifying the contestant was this: Although voters might not have been aware of this, the IP address and time were transmitted along with the vote. After receiving a few similar votes from the same IP address placed within minutes of each other, I became suspicious. In addition, most of these votes were credited to Hotmail e-mail accounts (which are free, and anyone can have as many as they want), some of which bounced with the confirmation message. None of these voters provided last names, or had any history of ever having posted at the Sandbox. A second midnight vote session from a couple at the same IP address indicated that this was probably not a public computer. The final straw was the receipt of a vote (for 1st place only) from an unknown but "real" user with an ISP in the same metro area, indicating to me that the contestant was now campaigning for votes from parties that probably had no interest in GI Joe, or the contest at all.

The fact that this pattern was not detectable in the voting for any of the other entries made this stick out like a sore thumb. Clearly, this was not in the spirit of the contest at all, and would compromise the validity of the entire contest if it were allowed to continue.

The decision to disqualify the contestant instead of the improper votes was influenced by the fact that all contestants were now guaranteed prizes. Firstly, there was no reason for this behaviour, except to improve one's position in the prize selection. Secondly, I have no desire to reward that type of behavior, or waste my time researching every single vote cast for this individual. Internet voting is difficult to police, without have to worry about users finding new ways to abuse a voting system. Out of fairness to the other contestants, I could not allow this to continue. So the contestant was disqualified, and the legitimate votes for that entry were discarded. In subsequent communications, the contestant did not offer any scenarios which fit the facts.

I relay this information as a means of explaining the descrepancy in the number of vote totals for third place, and also for the enlightenment of anyone who might host a similar contest. My recommendations for running a tight contest:

• Voters should not be permitted to list free e-mail accounts (like Hotmail or Yahoo mail) for vote confirmation;
• Voters should be required to provide their full name (first & last);
• Voters should be required to confirm in advance any additional voting from the same IP address;
• The contestants should be known at the Sandbox, or verifiable by a search of DejaNews or any other newsgroup archiving service.