Castanet posting fake election results

[techrtr]

Hey, Castanet is testing their election results coverage right now with fake results. Robert Hobson has 0 votes. Now, if I didn't know better, I would think I was seeing results from advance polls and wouldn't vote for the candidates at the bottom of the list.

If I was one of those candidates, I would be very *bleep*. Plus, I wonder if Elections BC has something to say about this.

[ferri]

i just checked it and everyone has 0 votes.

[Piecemaker]

A difficulty with the election matcher is that if a candidate answers "depends' instead of a solid yes or no, it doesn't come up as a match...although it may be. The more experienced politicians know that it is difficult sometimes to give a definite answer as more information may be needed or come to light that causes him/her to change their viewpoint. As well, sometimes a candidate may have to vote against their PERSONAL viewpoint for the greater good of the community it serves. I found reading the candidate's statements and visiting their websites more helpful to me than the candidate matcher.

[ferri]

s/he is talking about this:

http://www.castanet.net/elections/live_ ... ding_id=10

[Piecemaker]

accidently

I still think that the candidate matcher is misleading and not the best way determine who you are going to vote for.

OK

[techrtr]

They shut it down. Someone I work with called them to tell them that what they were doing was bad, very bad.

[ferri]

i have no idea what you are talking about then. i still get the page with all the candidates names with 0.

[techrtr]

Yeah, but until they were told that what they were doing was wrong, and possibly illegal, they were posting fake numbers e.g. Charlie Hodge 8033, Robert Hobson 0, Kid Rock 345 etc. Then the numbers were being refreshed every 60 seconds. They've turned it off now.

[David]

Here's the scoop.

At around 12:45 today we posted links on our front page to local voting locations. We also posted a teaser link to our result tote board we'll have on election night.

When we were testing the tote board in house, our programmer generated some random results. (There are bars next to each candidate's name that vary in size according to there vote count.)

We realized shortly after the launch of the teaser link (about 15 minutes) that we had accidentally left the test data up. It has now been zeroed out. Our apologies to everyone for leaving the test data up.

As always, if you spot an error on Castanet please call 250-860-5050 or email us [email protected] and we'll endeavor to fix it immediately. We have lots of people answering phones and checking the news email box. However, a post to the forums will likely be missed and take us much longer to correct.

David

[slayer2blive]

I have to wonder how the results of the candidate questionaire in respect of people matching with the candidates was determined. In the news report they mention weighing of the responses, when ever weight is put on responses you can tip the scale any way you want. Why didn't they report the matching percentage for Kim, there is only two mayoral candidates it wouldn't have taken up much space.

nope change that to

[CarMa]

:200: accidently

I still think that the candidate matcher is misleading and not the best way determine who you are going to vote for.

OK

I'll bite... I totally agree. I did the test and discovered that people I personally know and have always supported are at the bottom of the list and it's ALL because of the depends answers. I like someone who recognizes and can explain the shades of grey in any situation. It's easy to answer "yes" or "no" and play the odds.