There’s a storm brewing. There’s a new way for people to make their voices heard, but problems with the technology and malicious, computer savvy crackers are causing some serious doubts about the results. Many people think that the new electronic vote counters are too flawed to be trusted, especially after the how close the last race was.
No, it’s not Diebold, it’s American Idol.
American Idol Outrage: Your Vote Doesn’t Count (via Waxy.org: Links) takes a look into how the votes are being counted, how they’re being manipulated and why. The biggest problem is that they are using phone networks instead of data networks to receive votes.
Because phone networks can be tied up so easily, people with access to industrial strength dialers can attempt to prevent regular people from getting through. While it seems like it’s just a jerk move, they can actually profit by betting on an underdog choice at sites online. Then they flood the lines to prevent the more popular candidate’s votes coming through.
It’s an good study in network security and DDoS attacks, but it should be interesting to see whether people get more upset about failures in the technology controlling American Idol voting or presidential and congressional elections. I really hope that it’s the latter.