LoudounI.com Poll Incompetence: If the members of Loudoun's Board of Supervisors were all up for re-election today, who would you want voted out of office?

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, I've been dealing with some family issues.

I'm a little late on this topic, but I have some interesting insights on it.  Recently, LoudounI.com had the following online poll:

If the members of Loudoun's Board of Supervisors were all up for re-election today, who would you want voted out of office?

Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), extreme leftist, was winning the poll (to be voted out of office).  Then, a voting-bot was obviously put into use by the left-wingers to try to force Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), conservative patriot to win the poll.  I seriously doubt this was illegal since the bots were merely voting, not trying to cause a Denial of Service or gain access to server.  Rather, it exposes incompetence in the management of the online poll because there are relatively simple ways to prevent this from happening if the webmaster put enough value in the poll to take the time to secure it.

The poll uses (it's still open) a simple HTML form that submits an HTTP POST request to transmit the vote and an ID for the poll itself, not the particular vote.  It is very easy to generate an HTTP POST request from any computer or server, submit it to the poll server, and vote, over and over again automatically.

One way the webmaster could deter this without out too much server-side tracking is to include two hidden form fields, a timestamp and an encoded version of the timestamp that was hashed with another value by a function on the server.  Each time someone loads the poll web page, the values would be different.  When the poll is submitted, the timestamp and the encoded version can checked for tampering (the timestamp field in the submitted vote re-encoded by the server should equal the encoded version in the submitted vote).  To detect machine submissions, use the timestamp to make sure the vote wasn't submitted faster than humanly possible.

No online poll can ever be considered accurate, but polls where the webmaster doesn't even attempt to deter vote-bots are totally worthless.

Until LoudounI.com, secures their online polls, their polls aren't worth the time to read the results.

UPDATE:   I just saw this article: Editorial: Listening to You

This week’s poll took off, largely due to its asking readers to announce the support (or lack thereof) of the Board of Supervisors and its members. While we feel that these surveys are valuable in taking a “room temperature” of public sentiment, the polls are not intended as a scientific study. As with any online poll, there is certainly the possibility of multiple votes being cast by the same person.

The red section above should read:

As with any online poll [ON OUR WEBSITE], there is certainly the possibility [GUARANTEE] of multiple votes being cast by the same person.

If you don't at least attempt to stop poll-bots, you're guaranteed to have them destroy the results of your poll whenever the two sides of an issue get fired up on a contentious issue.

The Tyrants On The Loudoun BOS Are Trying To Ram The Meals Tax Down Our Throats Again

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

In case you haven't heard yet, the tyrants on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors are trying to ram a meals tax down our throats again, this time without a vote (because it was voted down in 1998, 2002, and 2008). Like good little tyrants, if you can't get public support, you find a way to ram it down the public's throats whether they like it or not (which, in this case, they despise it). They must be taking advice from the tyrants pushing the ObamaLackOfCare socialist healthcare industry seizure! But, then again, the Loudoun BOS did build the county government building after it was voted down, so they've been experts at finding the way around election results against their wishes since Obama was community organizin' on the mean streets of Chi-town (and not organizin' from the White House like he is now).

No surprise, Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling Park) was the voice of reason as usual on the board on the losing end of another 8-1 vote where he stood up for freedom against tyrrany.

The vote was whether to ask the General Assembly to grant counties the authority to impose a 6.5% meals tax and other taxes that towns and cities are allowed to ram down their citizens' throats without a vote. Currently, counties can impose a 4% meals tax if passed through referendum, not at the whim of the BOS.
Delgaudio sent out an e-mail to his constituents on October 26, 2009 that he will fight this and that "[t]he Republican Party will take up a resolution asking legislators to take a position and for whoever is elected Governor to veto the Loudoun Board's request."
It looks like that will be Bob McDonnell (in a landslide) and I hope he will veto this without a second thought if it makes it that far.
Here's the full section from Delgaudio's e-mail on the subject:

>>>STOP THE MEALS TAX 2009 update

The board of supervisors voted 8 yes, 1 no (Delgaudio) to ask Richmond for taxing authority for admission to events in the county, cigerette taxes and the meals tax. I am fighting this and will keep you posted. Many newspapers are beginning to report on this shocking development since the citizens voted down the meals tax three times (1998, 2002 and 2008).

The Republican Party will take up a resolution asking legislators to take a position and for whoever is elected Governor to veto the Loudoun Board's request.

We here at Don't Tread On Virginia salute your constant fighting for freedom, Supervisor Delgaudio! Keep fighting the good fight and don't let them tread on Loudoun either!