What trick will poor-choicers come up with now?

The Great Canadian Wish List contest was launched on Facebook in late May. Few days later, the contest organizers noticed that a wish to abolish abortion in Canada was the most supported. By then it received about 300 votes, compared to the pro-abortion wish which had 74. The CBC had to admit - debate on the right to life can't be ignored.

Once the Wish List hit the blogsphere, the numbers started adding up faster. On June 4th, when I posted my article on the contest, there were about 1400 votes for a wish to abolish abortion against roughly 600 votes to keep fetal rights under wraps. The numbers went up on both sides but a steady lead for the pro-life side (slightly over 2:1) remained. The numbers as of June 13th around noon, before the "great freeping" began were:

Abolish Abortion in Canada: 2996 votes.
For a spiritual revival in our nation: 1374 votes.
... Canada would remain "pro-choice": 1349 votes.
Restore the Traditional Definition of Marriage: 946 votes.

We have those numbers thanks to one Audra Williams, who didn't like the idea that Social Conservatives could win the contest and receive some attention from our fair and balanced media. Here's what she suggested the poor-choicers should do:

It's pretty gross. I'd like to bump the social conservatives down on the list, so I'm asking folks to to join the Pro-Choice group. I don't care if you're in Canada. I don't know if Facebook or the CBC cares. And pass around the link. I think it's stupid to have to put any effort into things like online polls and petitions, but I think the optics on this are bad, and I think it matters.

The word was spread and by June 20th it was about 4800 votes to keep the poor-choice versus 5100 votes to abolish abortion. On the next day the poor-choice wish was leading with some 5800 votes. Over a thousand votes in one day? I thought it had something to do with some of their supporters registering twice. The actual way to cheat appeared to be much easier:

cheat the wishlist

1- remove support from your favourite group
2- add support
3- press backspace [[[ faster than clicking back ]]]
4- add support
5- rinse and repeta as desired

** only works on 1000+ supporters

Facebook groups don't allow users to join twice, but apparently the developers had disabled this feature for groups with over 1000 supporters, to avoid too much pressure on the database. Someone on the poor-choice side had discovered the loophole and used it to get their group to the top. For a while.

The trick might have worked, but the poor-choicers' recipe for success was published on the group main page. From there it went to various discussion forums (including "Rabble" where some of the cheaters were quite proud of themselves having voted 10-15 times). Even the group itself had some discussion about whether it's ok to cheat with Corinne Langridge and Ickle Edgar seeing nothing wrong with that. (The instructions have been removed from the "wall" but the discussion topic is still there.) At the end, the site administration became aware of the glitch, so it was fixed and the phantom votes were removed. The pro-life side is back at the top with a 250-300 votes lead.

The contest continues and so are the attempts to "freep" the vote. Rabble users are upset about "whole Catholic schools voting for the Pro-Life side". Yet there's nothing wrong with Canadian Catholic school students voting in a Great Canadian Wish List contest. That however can't be said about hordes of poor-choicers from US and Europe invited by Audra Williams and her friends to decide what Canadians should wish for.