The tale of Mister Splashy Pants

Online polling is broken.

With sites like digg and reddit and many others, the ease with which a group of people can sway the vote is demonstrated time and again. The problem is differentiating “real” voters from “funny” voters. It is just too easy for someone to give a voting link to a large number of people who are not really interested in the outcome of the poll, who will totally unbalance the results.

Perhaps what online polls need is to use some of the mechanics of regular political voting systems. An electoral roll with a defined closing date that is before polling commences. No need to keep voter information long term, just long enough to have the people interested in a certain poll indicate their participation, and ensure that there are no band-wagon jumpers at the last minute. An online news site post saying “Quick, register to vote on the name of the Greenpeace whale - there is sure to be a funny option: we will let you know which option we think is the funniest in a few days!” is not likely to attract the same level of attention.