How Brand X “Corrects” Its Polls

Remember when I said I thought there was something fishy about that recent Coeur d’Alene Press poll re: the Idaho governor’s race — you know, the one that had Demo Jerry Brady way ahead of favored Repub Butch Otter (and then switched within a few minutes to reflect the opposite)? Well, there is something wrong. HBO has inside info. Deep Throat sez HBO “busted” the Press some time back when it ran a poll re: Bossman Duane Hagadone’s attempt to cultivate a downtown garden on Sherman Avenue. Remember? The poll showed overwhelming opposition for several days until it abruptly switched to show strong support. Deep Throat: ” The poll is not secure and all a programmer has to do is upload whatever numbers you want to the TownNews ftp server. You just have to make sure that the numbers all add up to 100% or it will crash the poll. You would be amazed how many times that has happened. The programmer we used to have had a hard time with addition. We put in whatever numbers Jim Thompson emailed to (us).”

/case solved … move along.