Halloween 2012 Webcam - Electronically Stuffing the Ballot!

Every four years, there is a presidential election. So to add some more levity to the halloween decorations webcam (which allows you to turn my halloween decorations on & off via zones), I setup a running tally of "votes cast" for the Democratic (zones 1+2) & Republican (zone 3+4) nominees ... plus the Green Party Candidate (zone 5+6) - Hulk for President! ;-)

The first time I did this in 2004, there was an isolated instance of a Kerry-Bot electronically stuffed the ballot. Perhaps not surprising, there was MUCH more ballot stuffing in 2008. I actually wrote a Perl program to analyze the voting behavior and flag IP addresses that cast an excessive number of votes for a single candidate (PRO) or ignoring a candidate (CON).

Here is just a few (!) examples of suspicious voting patterns:

Oct 13, 2012: IP Address 71.238.86.173 (from Ypsilanti, Michigan - pronouce that city!) cast 611 votes for Obama, 166 for Romney, and 182 for the HULK ... so those 611 votes were tossed.
Oct 14, 2012: IP Address 96.25.118.40 cast 0 votes for Obama, 84 for Romney, and 97 for the HULK ... we know who they are NOT voting for on November 6th! ;-)
Oct 15, 2012: IP Address 68.150.163.19 (from Alberta, Canada) cast 1,811 votes for Obama, 9 for Romney, and 19 for the HULK ... so those 1,811 "Canuck" votes were tossed.
Oct 15, 2012: IP Address 96.25.118.40 (also listed Oct 14) cast 31 votes for Obama, 1,152 for Romney, 945 for the HULK ... net result after "adjustments" (zero out the bias) is they cast 31 votes for Obama. They actually apologized on the Blog for ballot stuffing ... but they were having a fun time and that's OK with me! ;-)
Oct 17, 2012: IP address 94.23.117.228 (from Berlin, Germany) cast 0 votes for Obama, 191 for Romney, and 0 for the HULK ... let me guess which party he belongs too even though he's not in the USA?!? ;-)
Oct 17, 2012: IP address 31.3.214.197 (from London, England) cast 3 votes for Obama, 0 for Romney, and 231 for the HULK. While the Green Party appreciate the support, the Big Green Guy wants to win fair and square ... so those votes were tossed.
Oct 19, 2012: IP address 70.189.207.86 (from La$ Vega$) cast 12 votes for Obama, 12 for Romney, and 100 for the HULK ... that's rolling the dice and coming up lucky 7's for the Big Green Guy a bit too often.
Oct 19, 2012: IP address 78.146.86.34 (from London, England) cast 306 votes for Obama, 2 for Romney, and 2 for the HULK ... that's some serious left leaning in the UK! ;-)
Oct 22, 2012: IP address 209.159.252.57 (from Rapid City, South Dakota) cast 41 votes for Obama, 1013 for Romney, and 58 for the HULK ... that's some serious right leaning in Middle America! ;-)
Oct 24, 2012: IP address 24.52.18.96 (from Carlsbad, New Mexico) cast 0 votes for Obama, 402 for Romney, and 0 for the HULK ... that's ballot stuffing!
Oct 24, 2012: IP address 68.150.163.19 (from Spruce Grove, Ottawa, Canada) cast 1412 votes for Obama, 495 for Romney, and 1265 for the HULK ... that's an example of "CON" bias and in this case, against Romney ... so all votes are tossed!
Oct 25, 2012: IP address 68.150.163.19 again shows up but this time casts 54 votes for Obama, 288 for Romney, and 35 for the HULK ... guess he felt bad about yesterday and tried to make up ... but I still tossed the Romney ballot stuffing!
Oct 26, 2012: IP address 209.159.252.57 again shows up and casts 342 votes for Obama, 26 for Romney, and 26 for the HULK ... trying to balance out the previous right leaning bias?
Oct 31, 2012: IP address 50.131.9.77 (from Antioch, California) casts 536 votes for Obama, 11 for Romney, and 4 for the HULK ... coastal states tend to be Liberal.
Oct 31, 2012: IP address 24.52.18.96 again shows up and casts 0 votes for Obama, 274 for Romney, and 0 for the HULK ... middle America tends to be Conservative.
Oct 31, 2012: IP address 80.232.226.74 (from Latvia!) casts 0 votes for Obama, 0 for Romney, and 382 for the HULK ... Europe goes with the Green Party Candidate!

Needless to say, I invalidated these types of votes and considered "banning" those IP's from the webcam for this abusive and un-American behavior!

In 2012, the PRO IP's ended up numbering 3 for Obama, 6 for Romney and 10 for Hulk. On the flip side, the CON IP's numbered 9 against Obama, 16 against Romney, and 8 against the Hulk - don't want to get the Big Green Guy angry!

X10 Control Commands by Day for 2012 and Votes for Obama/Romney/Hulk

Date	Sent	Overloads	Obama	Romney	HULK!	(invalidated electronic ballot stuffing in parens)
2012/1013	5,607	3,026	(1,054) 1,149	(615) 997	(215) 1,577
2012/1014	61,190	59,777	1,003	(84) 814	(97) 1,114	Hacket-Bot sent 58,078 X10 commands
2012/1015	11,253	9,473	(1,839) 1,951	(1,525) 2,496	(945) 2,497
2012/1016	1,857	696	646	(153) 494	564
2012/1017	4,652	3,075	(42) 1,509	(377) 1,174	(420) 1,130
2012/1018	1,503	578	(162) 339	(114) 387	(125) 376
2012/1019	1,479	680	(490) 263	329	(100) 297
2012/1020	900	291	294	335	271
2012/1021	4,292	2,722	1,442	1,400	1,450
2012/1022	2,750	1,837	(493) 336	(1,013) 333	(317) 258
2012/1023	3,479	1,602	(407) 833	(275) 871	(142) 951
2012/1024	5,742	4,279	(1,624) 399	(1,649) 328	(1,364) 385
2012/1025	4,723	3,515	(1,309) 209	(623) 507	(1,368) 707
2012/1026	1,814	861	(342) 283	(314) 363	(185) 327
2012/1027	1,560	851	528	517	515
2012/1028	1,383	588	461	461	461
2012/1029	1,935	1,217	339	(483) 252	(634) 227
2012/1030	1,994	878	(68) 466	(280) 534	(152) 494
2012/1031	14,271	9,372	(1,533) 2,610	(1,555) 2,419	(3,911) 2,243
2012/1101	5,623	4,738	(1,645) 285	(1,495) 362	(1,519) 317
TOTAL	138,007	110,056	(11,008) 15,345	(10,555) 15,373	(11,494) 16,161

Sent is number of X10 commands (toggle power on/off) sent by web surfers
Overloads is number of times the X10 system was overloaded and the throttle engaged
When a web surfer clicks on a zone, that casts a vote for a candidate. Obama is 1 & 2, Romney is 3 & 4, and HULK is 5 & 6

Votes cast by Internet Bots to electronically stuff the ballot are invalidated as are unusually excessive one-sided voting