
'Dancing with the Stars' voting hacked for Palin?  - evo_9
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20023485-71.html
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TomOfTTB
First the "successful underdog" phenomenon is common in these shows. Look at
any one of these reality shows and there's always someone who gets "picked on"
by the judges (because they're in way over their head) and gets pity votes
because of it. Nikki McKibbin, Diana Degarmo, and so on...

Second all the anecdotal evidence of cheaters seems to indicate the cheaters
are idiots. ABC has already said they track IP addresses and block proxy sites
so the guy who thinks he's a genius for voting 300 times with fake e-mail
addresses didn't really impact the results.

Finally in my experience with people who actually have the skill to game this
system I've found way, WAY more of them hate Sarah Palin than like her. I
can't off the top of my head think of a "hacker" who counts him/her self as a
Palin fan.

So this story is kind of stupid.

~~~
electromagnetic
Agreed, I think it's much more likely that the Palinites are simply maxing out
the votes they're allowed to make IE 10 calls (per phone number - note that a
psycho fan in your average household could easily pull off 50 votes by using
their cell, their spouses their kids and their home phone), texts, emails,
etc.

I remember back in the UK the reality shows used to limit it to 1 vote per
type, but they still suffered huge problems like this. It sometimes seemed
like the best person often failed on the Idol shows, but were picked up by a
huge agent on a better contract than the actual winner (IE better sign on
bonus, not forced into tours, etc.). IIRC Simon Cowell actually wanted a non-
compete clause put into the contracts to prevent this, however I don't think
anything came of it and he's now leaving American Idol - likely in part
because of this.

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jamesbritt
"Tom Bergeron to Bristol Palin Conspiracy Theorists: ‘F*ck You.’ "

[http://www.movieline.com/2010/11/tom-bergeron-talks-to-
movie...](http://www.movieline.com/2010/11/tom-bergeron-talks-to-
movieline-1.php)

