birding-aus

Duck Shooting Poll - how to fake it

To: birding-aus <>
Subject: Duck Shooting Poll - how to fake it
From: Andrew Taylor <>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:09:20 +1100
On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:06:42AM +1100,  wrote:
> Meaningless, meaningless polls. 
> If you want to vote multiple times to skew the tally, all you have to do 
> is delete your browsing history and temporary internet files through your 
> browser.

I took a quick look and the fairfax polling script seems to allow
only one vote from any internet address - which is a common method of
reducing multiple voting in online polls.  There are still various ways
a single person can make multiple votes - thousands of votes if they
are determined.  There is no easy way to provide quick anonymous online
voting without this problem.  There is a neologism, "freeping", for the
skewing of online polls, stemming from a website where it is popular:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Republic

There is no reason to believe multiple voting has skewed the Age poll.
One newspaper report indicated a Morgan poll found 75+% of Victorian
opposed a 2009 duck season. But its not at all surpising that
an online poll like this would have different resultsa and as Perter
says it pretty meaningless.

Duck hunting was a relatively popular Victorian activitiy.  In the 1980s
there were nearly 100,000 duck hunters.  When I took part in anti-hunting
protests in NSW in the 80s, hunters up from Victoria outnumbered locals
about 2-1.  These days I believe its more like 20,000 licensed duck
hunters in Victoria.

Andrew

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