Auto Poll Voter
How to win or cheat ANY online voting contest – Whole Whale
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of voting competitions, especially ones that are built irresponsibly. That’s why I’ve set out to create the definitive guide on breaking (/cheating) poorly designed nonprofit voting problem with voting competitions is that they pit nonprofits against each other for a prize that usually doesn’t come close to the true cost of the votes that these organizations push to get. What’s more, they run the risk of burning out the supporters of these great organizations.
In the worst case scenario, one organization decides to cheat because the system is designed with flaws by some marketing firm and they see a way to easily game the system to win money for their great cause. I am not justifying or endorsing cheating – I actually believe the only way to win these contests is by not playing. However, in an effort to scare the pants off of people creating these contests I decided to create this Whole Whale does not cheat on behalf of our clients. It is not a service WW offers nor will ever! @WholeWhale just wrote the guide on how to beat most nonprofit online voting contests. Click To Tweet
Step 1: Figure out how it is built
Online voting competitions will use a variety of ways to track votes through a website. Here are the most common building technical:
A Web Form Built with the GET method
This method (low security) means that the form will push the data into the URL and you will see it. e. g. to break: Find that URL and go ham on the refresh button. Hide the cookies and IP address if they are tracking. Post that link anywhere you can and every click will equal a vote. Honestly, no reputable contest will be built this way because it isn’t 2006, but hey, you never know…
A Web Form Built with the POST method
This method (medium security) means that the form will push the data through the body of the request and will not show in the to break: you may be able to use the back button if cookies aren’t being set. If they are being set you can hide cookies with a browser like Chrome with cookies disabled. If they built it correctly you will need a more advanced human assisted tech approach (see step 2 below).
Cookies – contests that don’t require a sign in and allow anonymous votes depend on cookies that may have timers in some cases. To break: clear your cookies, vote, repeat. Use Chrome and a cookie remover to block the cookies of the site, if it still lets you vote you’re all set to click away. The browser has very good privacy protection that will block this type of tracking. Cookie and IP on mobile – if you are using a mobile device you can try switching to airplane mode and using a wifi network to confuse the IP tracking. IP – Some use the IP to determine location voting. You can use a proxy server or a local VPN like Hotspot Account – This will require multiple accounts and a more advanced approach to get enough votes. Depending on how the account is authenticated, it may be not be possible to automate mass confirmation – This is the most common system I see, it requires an email to be confirmed from the inbox with the link to record the vote.
Step 2: Human assisted automation
The following are various tactics which can be combined to break most voting systems with a little help from third party tools. In order to not look suspicious it is important not to show suspiciously large voting counts – I can immediately tell if a distribution of votes is unnatural and violating an expected power law (20% of the contestants getting 80% of the total votes). In one case we spotted this in a contest one of our clients were considering and we advised them not to participate – later we found several articles on the cheating that had Whole Whale does not cheat on behalf of our clients. It is not a service WW offers nor will ever offer.
Computer Macros
A macro is a program that you can setup on a computer that goes through a series of clicks and keyboard strokes on a timed interval. If a voting system doesn’t require a captcha or other human test, a macro can be created to go through a voting cycle unabated. Combine these tools with a hotspot shield and cookies disabled on a computer can break most non-email verification process. Some tools:
Macro Express – downloadable software that will let you turn your computer into a bot that is timed to click and enter information as toHotkey – downloadable software that will let you click the heck out of buttons or load pages.
Email Generators
For secure voting systems that don’t have strict email confirmations, there are ways to generate emails quickly. These email hacks can also be used to create accounts for systems the require logins.
Any single Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or normal domain email address can be made into thousands of emails by adding a “+” or “. ” after the name and before the “@” sign. For example, can be and the email will still be delivered to your you own your own domain, you can create a bunch of aliases for one email ilinator – this is a site that will generate emails for you on demand and give you a quick inbox that the confirmation link will be sent to. Using a variety of email domains can help make this look less spammy. This is a list of temporary email domains hosted via mailinator:
Outsourced Voting
For a nominal amount of money, an organization can purchase votes or emails through ‘Vote Brokers’. These groups will do your bidding in the same way they translate audio to text or do other simple outsource tasks for companies. Technically it is against the Amazon Turk policy to pay workers to vote – which is great. However you can still hire someone on a site like UpWork to build a script that could use the above tactics.
Proxy Voting
A proxy vote traditionally means that a voter transfers their right to vote to a third party. Massive lists of proxy accounts can be managed by a single person simply logging in one by one and voting. Imagine if political staffers could collect permission to vote on behalf of voters in a district in perpetuity — not really the will or action of a crowd, but highly best way to win a nonprofit voting competition is by not entering. Click To Tweet
Finally, for the contest creators
This post is meant to ruin poorly designed voting competitions and to scare anyone thinking about building a nonprofit voting competition. I hate the idea of cheating nonprofits and I think that starts when a contest doesn’t use responsible design.
Responsible Contest Design Questions
Can your online system be quickly gamed by the exploits above? (I beg you not to use GET requests or anonymous voting)Can you use a third party authentication to stop the email hack? Is the prize pool large enough to make an expected value equation make sense for all participants?
Expected Value for Voting Contest = Prize amount * (total # winners / total # charities)
Do the nonprofits involved get to keep the voter data that relates to their org? In the case of emails, do they get them? Is there a way to build this so that every participant wins in some way? Is the time frame limited so there is only a small window of nonsense voting requests? Is there a clever way to design the voting process so that it actually produces some positive impact for the nonprofit? e. g. voters have to submit photos they take of the cause that the nonprofit can have access to later for their photo database. Or they must submit 1 idea that they think would improve their work. you use a threshold voting, where nonprofits need to get to X votes to be considered by a panel? This caps the voting nonsense while still getting a bit of the network effect you are hoping for your brand. This pairs well with a social integration.
I hope these questions will spur some more creative approaches to contest design and will add more value to the nonprofits who Whole Whale does not cheat on behalf of our clients. It is not a service WW offers nor will ever offer. Also, please don’t reach out to us to vote for your contest.
So there you have it – our guide to breaking online voting contests so your nonprofit can win. And more importantly, to bring transparency to this one-sided marketing tactic.
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AP-NORC poll: Majority in US back easier voter registration
A new AP-NORC poll finds about half of Republicans and three-quarters of Democrats favor automatic voter registration. Republicans overwhelmingly favor photo ID requirements to vote, as do a slim majority of Democrats. WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats’ proposals to overhaul voting in the U. S. won solid — although not overwhelming — support from Americans in a new survey measuring the popularity of major pieces of the sweeping legislation in Congress.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found about half of Americans support expanding access to early and mail voting, while about 3 in 10 opposed the ideas and the rest had no opinion. Automatic voter registration was the most popular Democratic proposal in the survey, endorsed by 60% of Americans. Generally, the partisan divide was stark, as many Republicans opposed measures that make is easier to register and vote and most Democrats embraced them. About three-quarters of Democrats supported no-excuse voting by mail, for example, but about 6 in 10 Republicans were was one striking exception: Nearly three-quarters of all Americans — including majorities of both parties — said they support laws requiring voters to present photo identification, even as the Democratic proposal would ease those laws. The sizable number of Americans who expressed no opinion on many of the measures suggests both parties have some room to try to sway public opinion as they ramp up efforts to pressure the Senate to act on the bill. “When you ask questions that are focused specifically on voting, you can’t help but step into what is a super-charged debate that is still resonating coming off the 2020 election, ” said U. Rep. John Sarbanes, one of the lead sponsors of the Democrats’ bill. “There continues to be a lot of misinformation around what it means to have accurate and fair elections and voting in this country. ”The 2020 presidential election was dominated by coronavirus pandemic-related voting changes and a flood of misinformation and false claims of voter fraud. There was no widespread election fraud, and those claims were rejected by Republican and Democratic election officials in state after state, by U. cybersecurity officials and by courts up to the U. Supreme Court. And then-Attorney General William Barr said there was no evidence of fraud that could change the election outcome. Still, now there is a collective sense of urgency to change how elections are run. But each side is taking a dramatically different path, with state Republicans looking to tighten rules and Democrats in Congress seeking national voting standards. The two approaches reflect a partisan disagreement over the problem that needs solving. The AP-NORC poll shows a significant split over whether voter suppression or voter fraud is the more pressing concern. While 62% of Democrats say people who are eligible not being allowed to vote is a major problem, just 30% of Republicans do. Sixty-three percent of Republicans but just 19% of Democrats say people voting who are not eligible is a major DiMenna, a 67-year-old retiree from Ashland, Ohio, who participated in the poll, said he did not think voter suppression or voter fraud were major problems, and he wished politicians of both parties would stop making voting so political. “Put aside the party lines and do what’s best for the people of the United States, ” said DiMenna, who voted for Joe Biden in November. “There is always common ground somewhere. ”The poll found bipartisan agreement on requiring all voters to provide photo identification at their polling place — something that more than a dozen mostly Republican-led states have implemented. Not all these states have strict rules, though, and many allow voters to sign an affidavit if they don’t have their photo ID with them. Overall, 72% are in favor of requiring voters to provide photo identification to vote, while just 13% are opposed. Ninety-one percent of Republicans and 56% of Democrats are in favor. The bill in Congress would require all states with an ID requirement to allow voters to sign a sworn statement under penalty of perjury and have their ballot measure is one of several in Democrats’ legislation, which also includes various changes to campaign finance and ethics laws. The House approved its bill in early March, and a companion measure has had its first hearing in the passage, however, depends on whether Democrats, who have a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, are willing to toss out legislative rules that currently require 60 votes for most bills to advance. Republican lawmakers are universally opposed to the voting overhaul, calling it a Democratic power grab and federal intrusion into states’ rights to administer mocrats are hoping to use the federal effort to thwart state proposals that would restrict access to the polls. The Brennan Center for Justice counts 360 voting restriction bills introduced this year. Five have already been enacted, and 29 others have passed at least one legislative chamber, the group says. The AP-NORC poll suggests a strong base of support that voting advocates can build on, according to Wendy Weiser, who leads the democracy program at the Brennan Center. “The two things that increase support are people learning more about the reforms and how they work and people experiencing those reforms in practice in their own communities, ” Weiser said. This has been the case with Ann Cobb, a 56-year-old former customer service representative who lives in Calhoun, Georgia, where state lawmakers years earlier did away with requiring an excuse to vote absentee. She supports keeping it that way so long as voters show proof of identification. “I think there are more opportunities for fraud with the mail-in voting, but I think if they can make you send in your driver’s license and identification then it should be OK, ” said Cobb, who voted for President Donald Trump in November but changed her party registration to independent after a pro-Trump mob’s deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U. Capitol.
Georgia lawmakers have done just that, recently passing a bill that now requires absentee voters to include driver’s license information when requesting and returning mail ballots. And Republican lawmakers in Congress say that is how voting changes should be done — at the state level. “Each state has different election laws because each state is different, ” said U. Bryan Steil, a Republican from Wisconsin, at a recent congressional hearing. “At a time of real record voting turnout, I don’t think it’s time to be mandating a one-size-fits-all to our voting system. ”Other elements of the Democratic bill would restore voting rights to felons and require same-day voter registration. The poll found 51% of Americans in favor of allowing a citizen who has completed a prison sentence for a felony to vote upon release, while 20% are opposed. Fifty-three percent of Americans say they support allowing citizens to register and vote on the same day at polling places, while 27% are mocrats are more likely than Republicans to be in favor of both proposals. ___Cassidy reported from Atlanta. ___The AP-NORC poll of 1, 166 adults was conducted March 26-29 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3. 6 percentage points.
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Frequently Asked Questions about auto poll voter
Is Vote counting automated?
Vote counting is the process of counting votes in an election. It can be done manually or by machines. In the United States, the compilation of election returns and validation of the outcome that forms the basis of the official results is called canvassing.
What is the meaning of poll vote?
What does Poll Vote mean? In a poll vote, votes on a resolution are calculated by reference to the number of shares held by members present at the meeting in person, by proxy or corporate representative and members casting votes in advance, rather than by reference to the number of physical attendees at the meeting.
How do you organize a Whatsapp poll?
To create a new poll, the user has to fill the title and options. Options can be rearrange by dragging them. They can also choose between multiple/single choice [3] and anonymous/public votes [4].
