So, Lis got the following email:

[xiphias]

To: Elisabeth Riba <XXX@XXXXXXX&g;
Subject: Who do you favor for the next president? Take our online poll.

***AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION ONLINE POLL***

YOUR VOTE IS NEEDED NOW!

You help is requested in gaining the opinion of online voters to the
following question. Whom do you favor for the next President of the United
States - John Kerry, George W. Bush, or Ralph Nader?

Go to http://www.onlinepolls.net/pollv1/default.aspx?pid=10 to express
your opinion.

Cast your vote. Forward to a friend. Help us feel the pulse of America.

Thanks,

Don

Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

++++++++++++

You are receiving this message because you took action on a previous
AFA-sponsored poll or petition. If you do not wish to receive future
mailings from us, go to the following URL to unsubscribe:
http://lists.afa.net/u?id=XXXXXXXXXX=F&l=petitionsalt

Okay, they're trying again. And this time, they're trying to restrict it to their membership. Hmm.

So I went to the site

I stuck in my poll-answer.


Okay, no problem.

Then another screen came up. They've gotten marginally smarter!


Frankly, I can respect that.

But, I figured, that means that, since they're cutting out scripts, it's more important to vote, just to piss off the AFA, which is fun. But, well, it won't be as impressive as last time. Oh, well.



And I fell over laughing. Right now, it's pretty much the same as it was then.


So, the AFA was restricting their poll to people who'd voted in the earlier polls. They didn't really think this through, I suspect.

Comments

[navrins]

Following your link, they are now asking for name and email address.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Oh, I gave them that. I'll be changing ISPs soon. And you know what, they should fear me.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

They were then, too, but we snipped that out of the picture I posted.

[goljerp]

email address.
Yep. Spamgourmet is your friend!

(I got that E-mail this morning and decided not to vote... at last check there was a groundswell of support for Bush; he's all the way up to 3.71% of 38,019 votes.)

[cellio]

That's what bogus addresses are for. Or, if they're verifying, mailinator.com. :-)

<h1> wtf?<h1>

[the-editor.livejournal.com]

I think it is of paramount import that NON AFA people stay on their mailing list...

how else are we going to know when to poll against them??

AFA poll

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

they're asking for an email address. i gave them a non-existing address at their own domain because i don't ever want to get email from them.

the numbers at around 7 am PST:

John Kerry 90.14 % 31,387 vote(s)
George Bush 3.70 % 1,289 vote(s)
Ralph Nader 6.16 % 2,145 vote(s)
Total: 34,821 vote(s)

oh, and xiphias? you might want to take the unsub link out of the post, unless you want any random person who clicks on it to unsub lis.

*cackle*.

Re: AFA poll

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

you might want to take the unsub link out of the post, unless you want any random person who clicks on it to unsub lis.

Okay, I just munged it.

Re: AFA poll

[volare.livejournal.com]

and WWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
(sorry, got here surfing around friends-of-friends, amused to see we had the same take on this bit of email this morning...)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Heh. Triple the number of responses now, and Kerry is still at 90+ percent. What *were* they thinking?

Dear American Family Association:

Buh?

Sincerely yours,

Concerned Pinko Pervert Freaks for Sensible Survey Sampling

Side note

[firecat]

Do you know how spammers are foiling that security feature? comp.risks has this article about it:

every time spammers have to deal with such an image they bring it up on the screen of someone
who is looking for free porn and pretend that they are doing a check. The user will respond and the answer gets forwarded back up the line. The /. discussion is at http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/28/1344207&mode=flat, the original Boing-Boing posting is at http://boingboing.net/2004_01_01_archive.html#107525288693964966

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I got that email too. "What?" I said, intrigued. Clicky clicky, went my fingers, and I stared in amazement at the poll results, which as of the time I voted had Kerry at 90.14% with over 22K votes in.

I hope someone at the AFA is rubbing his forehead with his fingers right now and muttering, "I didn't think about that gay marriage poll when I restricted it to former respondents..."

[gingicat]

Thanks for reminding me; the email's been sitting in my box waiting for me to deal with it.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I answered it and saw the same thing. *big grin* Now if only the election in November would come out the same way.

[(Anonymous)]

The poll is still running. 90% for Kerry (60,000 votes), 6% Nader, 4% Bush; and the AFA now has a database full of bogus email addresses.

Vote early. Vote often. Move often.

[psu-jedi.livejournal.com]

heh heh heh! I got the same one! And immediately knew why!

Obviously the person in charge of this isn't too bright! ;-)