MIT Boosters Vote and Hack Their Way to Win in 'Doonesbury' Poll

MIT Boosters Vote and Hack Their Way to Win in 'Doonesbury' Poll

By Dave Astor

Published: May 26, 2006 10:50 AM ET
NEW YORK Despite some digital ballot-box stuffing, or perhaps because of it, MIT has won the poll that asked where Alex Doonesbury should go to college.

"A careful check of the applicable rulebook indicates that queering the results was not specifically prohibited," noted a Friday post on Doonesbury.com, where the poll was conducted. "And by tradition, engineers, hackers, and techfolk will assume that in a problem-solving situation of this nature, there is no box out of which they are not expected to climb. The Doonesbury Town Hall thanks all those who took the time and trouble to vote, even those who voted only once. Ms. Doonesbury will be attending MIT."

More than 175,000 votes -- legitimate or otherwise -- had come in when the poll was removed from Doonesbury.com Tuesday morning. Final percentages were not posted on the site today. But when contacted by E&P this morning, a Doonesbury Town Hall spokesman said MIT had 48%, Rensselaer 32%, and Cornell 19%.

Today's post explained some of the ballot shenanigans: "Voting was insane, rampant, ingenious, and impressively ruthless. An MIT student put up 'Doonesbury Voting Hack,' a Web site (adorned with art borrowed from the Town Hall) which enabled would-be-ballot-stuffers to spew out over a million votes in a single night. 'We're all running cgi hack scripts,' lol'd one MIT blogger. 'I've voted 3 or 4 thousand times!' Fortunately the prophylactic measures swiftly implemented by the Doonesbury Town Hall crack tech crew kept most of the votes from making it into the poll.

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