BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!

Subject: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: GUEST,Sammy
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 11:09 PM

I just cast my vote for Democratic nominee in the MoveOn.org primary for Kucinich.

They are also asking another great question: Which of the following candidates would you enthusiastically support? For that one, I voted for Kerry and Dean.

Now if only they had asked who I would vehemently oppose!

Voting remains open through Wednesday, June 25, and the results will be posted on June 27.

It's not too late--so go vote now!

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 11:35 PM

do they have any controls against someone voting 179 times? I don't see the point.

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 12:04 AM

Probably no more than petitions signed at the grocery stores are guaranteed not to have duplicates, Bill, but I still think it can show a trend, at least. I think a lot of politicians must think so, too, as I've always heard if they get one letter about an issue they figure there must be something like a thousand other constituents who feel the same as the letter-writer. And, who knows, with the internet being such a new vehicle for these kinds of things? MoveOn has done some impressive 3D work in presenting petitions to congresspeople, etc., and have garnered some validity, imo.

I wrote a couple of published op/ed pieces about MoveOn, back in 1998, when they first started it up. It was a wife and husband team who spent about $90 to put up the website. Here's a bit of what I wrote, from a telephone interview with them concerning their "Censure and MoveOn" campaign in regards to President Clinton:

Blade and Hlinko have used their computer savvy to automatically sort, by Congressional district, the zip codes provided by everyone who signed their on-line petition. In that way, they've translated those names into a powerful Election Day, non-partisan loud and clear message to Congress. In what they term a "real world action", on Thursday, October 29th, at noon, thousands of volunteers will simultaneously meet in 226 Congressional districts in 44 states, with hundreds of Congress members, to discuss the need to move on
to more important issues, such as campaign reform, health care, education, and tax reform.


kat

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: NicoleC
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 12:27 AM

> do they have any controls against someone voting 179 times?

Yes, in order to vote you MUST register and MUST use the link to your ballot they send you. If you try to vote again, you simply change your ballot. If you forward the link to someone else, they change your vote, not get to vote again. They are also employing other security features to eliminate duplicate votes from deliberate cheaters. They are also conducting an independant phone "exit poll" to help gauge the vote.

I'm rather disappointed that they didn't take the extra step and do instant runoff voting, or at least allow voters to express order of preference.

> I don't see the point

The point is that MoveOn is a PAC with a significant amount of money to spend. Unlike most PAC's. MoveOn is allowing the members to democratically indicate the candidates they wish to support. If any candidate gets 50% or more of the vote (very unlikely), MoveOn will endorse them exclusively. That could mean $5 million in campaign contributions from members, or more. In 2002, MoveOn donated $4.1 million to Congressional candidates, and their membership has significantly increased since then.

The other point is to get people involved, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 12:52 AM

Thanks, Nicole!

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 03:25 AM

I did it yesterday and as Nicole C says, they say your email address will be counted only once; in addition you affirm that you will vote only once.

The main thing that could skew it is if some someones- not Republicans, of course- were to try to muddy it by sending in multiple votes from different addresses, just to invalidate any conclusions. On a country-wide basis, that could change the dynamics severely.

I seem to remember a few dirty tricks not so long ago. Lee Atwater may be dead, but he wasn't the only sleaze.

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 11:17 AM

hmmm...ok, maybe it is worth a try.

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 12:39 PM

I voted.

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 02:40 PM

Interesting.

Yahoo News
WASHINGTON - Activists staging a massive online Democratic presidential primary ran into some technical problems Tuesday as a flood of Internet voters briefly overwhelmed the MoveOn.org Web site and halted the voting process for more than an hour.

About 50,000 people were able to cast electronic ballots for Democratic candidates on the advocacy group's Web site before the system crashed around 11:15 a.m. EDT.

"We had a much greater load than we expected all at once," said Wes Boyd, president of the MoveOn.org's political action committee, which organized the vote. "We did some tuning and tweaking to make the voting program more efficient, and we anticipate there will be no more problems."

By 12:30 p.m., the site was back up and running, Boyd said.

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: NicoleC
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 04:19 PM

I avoided the morning vote rush because I thought there might be issues. I voted around 1pm... then learned later there were problems from Reuters.

Of course, they could have avoided this by sending out the ballots in batches through the day instead of all at once. Live and learn -- so far they are doing great for the first time this has really been done anywhere on this scale. Having stood in line for 30 minutes of more at my polling place on election day, a delay of an hour to vote doesn't seem horrible to me.

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: TIA
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 05:23 PM

Did it.

Subject: RE: BS: VOTE NOW AT MOVEON.ORG!!!
From: NicoleC
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 01:47 PM

The results are in. Full details here.

The results of the vote:
DEAN 139360 43.87%
KUCINICH 76000 23.93%
KERRY 49973 15.73%
EDWARDS 10146 3.19%
GEPHARDT 7755 2.44%
GRAHAM 7113 2.24%
BRAUN 7021 2.21%
LIEBERMAN 6095 1.92%
SHARPTON 1677 0.53%

OTHER 6121 1.93%
UNDECIDED 6378 2.01%
317647 100.00%

----------------------
The results of which candidate voters would enthusiastically support:
DEAN 264866 86.02%
KERRY 231830 75.29%
KUCINICH 210164 68.25%
GEPHARDT 163110 52.97%
EDWARDS 172076 55.88%
BRAUN 155628 50.54%
GRAHAM 153045 49.70%
LIEBERMAN 132447 42.01%
SHARPTON 109249 35.48%

ANY DEM CANDIDATE - 28.47%