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To: silent_jonny; EmilyGeiger; texasflower; Wolfstar; All
FYI, here's a link to an interesting article (IMHO) which makes the point that the strange, weird, surprising voting patterns are due almost entirely to Text Messaging..IOW, it appeals to young girls..with TM you can vote as many times as you want, as long as you are willing to pay for it, ( or their parents are) but if you call in, you have to be able to get through..A one who has never voted on AI, nor even sent a TM to anyone..I'm a techie luddite, I guess..is there any merit to this thesis? IOW, since we're told over and over that obesity is this country's #1 problem, are all the fatties voting for Scott?
1,427 posted on 03/31/2005 12:31:39 PM PST by ken5050 (The Dem party is as dead as the NHL)
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To: ken5050
As one who has never voted on AI, nor even sent a TM to anyone..I'm a techie luddite, I guess..is there any merit to this thesis?

Although I've never voted on AI nor sent a TM to anyone, either, I think there's merit to it. Perhaps because I don't have any kids in my life between the ages of about 10 to 16, I'm curious about their attitudes and point of view. So I check out the AI boards fairly often. Aside from some non-AI-related things, like posters who are obviously kids saying they are in their 20's or 30's, and the many posters with woeful lack of spelling skills [grin], the passion the kids expend over their favorites is equal to, if not greater than what we've seen on FR recently about Terri Schiavo.

Each week, millions of kids vote literally hundreds and hundreds of times (great training for when they grow up and become Democrats, LOL!). There were some 32,000,000 votes cast this week alone, or over 3 million per contestant if all got roughly an equal number. A large percentage undoubtedly are TM votes. However, you can vote as many times as you want using land-line phones, computer speed-dialers, cells, TM, etc.

The people who get the most votes in per night are those lucky enough to own computers with high-speed internet connections and sophisticated speed-dialing software. The computer does the dialing and voting far more rapidly than any human can keep hitting the redial button on their phone.

The AI producers never release the vote breakdown, but I think it's safe to conclude that even the contestant voted off in any given week gets a ton of votes. Right now over on the AI boards, there are Jessica Sierra voters posting angry comments that sound a lot like the angry adults who've been all over FR these last couple of weeks.

1,428 posted on 03/31/2005 12:50:22 PM PST by Wolfstar (If you can lead, do it. If you can't, follow. If you can't do either, become a Democrat.)
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To: ken5050
is there any merit to this thesis?

I have no idea. I never vote, just criticize :)

1,436 posted on 03/31/2005 2:02:46 PM PST by silent_jonny
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To: ken5050

That was really interesting and it does explain some things.


1,449 posted on 04/01/2005 12:02:50 AM PST by texasflower ("America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one." President George W. Bush 01/20/05)
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