A few hours before the polls closed yesterday in the Pet Décor Contest (5pm), we noticed something strange going on. Suddenly the votes for two of our finalists, Bob and Jessica, shot way up. The comments revealed a level of unprecedented passion among the voters.
At about 2:00 we received en email from Bob, volunteering to withdraw from the contest.
For the remainder of the day Bob and Jessica stayed neck and neck, with Jessica finally beating out Bob by 16 votes (see the final tally above.)
Bob's email had explained that some friends from an online guinea pig forum, in their eagerness to see him win, had found some ways to get around our poll security and were casting multiple votes for him. He had asked them to stop but it was too late. Observing the parallel run-up in votes for Jessica, he surmised that folks out there were doing the same thing on her behalf.
We like running contest on AT. They seem to bring out the best in our readers. Clearly they bring out some other things as well. We don't think Bob should withdraw. But we're bummed that we'll never know if he was fated to be something other than 2nd place. And what about Jessica and Dana?
What we want to know is, what do you think? Given the limitations of our honor voting system, what's the best way to handle our very own AT:SF hanging chad scandal? Remember, we have cool prizes from George for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places just waiting to be awarded...
Veronica & Keith's Handmade Chic 
The World's Ugliest Condo: The Big Bathroom Reveal 
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Hunslet Dinner Plate
A Beginner's Guide to Superb Stir-Fry: Quick, Healthy Meals from a Wok
Homesteaders' Cocktail Recipe: Lovage Simple Syrup
Comments (11)
Man, my friends are all so technologically challenged!
I'm so impressed with Bob for being honest...my votes are with him... GO BOB!!!
i knew that my friends and family got very excited about voting for me and bubba, (and i am italian, so i have a very big family!) but i was also very suprised at the skyrocketed numbers.
i don't know what to offer in terms of deciding the contest, either. i do know that, as before, i am just glad to have been in the top three and think that bob and dana's designs are fantastic as well. so, whatever may come to be is more than i might have expected in the first place!
sorry for all of the drama! it is one of the most exciting things that has happened in wyoming in a while...
jessica
Kudos to Bob for stepping up and being honest. Also, it was great to see something in the contest that wasn't just for cats and dogs.
Flip a coin? Draw straws?
How about if our kind hosts and the three finalists' secretly vote on what order they think the prizes should be awarded?
regards,
trillium
Hi, Lisa. Hi, Jessica.
I'm okay with withdrawing. The prize isn't important to me personally -- it was for PAWS/San Francisco -- and I can easily send PAWS a personal donation instead. PAWS is a great organization and they'll benefit one way or another. See http://www.pawssf.org/ if your curious about what this do.
It's also good to see Jessica's would use a prize to provide for a rescue dog. Rescue animals rock.
Most important for me is to let people know that they can house small animals with roomy, low cost, easy-to-make cages that will improve their pets existence immeasurably. It doesn't have to be a fancy, stained wood condo. Check out http://www.guineapigcages.com/ and see what anyone can do with no skill whatsoever.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents. This has been fun and I hope this contest brought new visitors to Apartment Therapy and their sponsors (especially George).
Woops. Forgot to say hi to Dana too. I like your litterbox cover. We were lucky -- we were able to put our litter box downstairs in garage. But for many city dwellers that's not an option.
Do you have the option of just giving the same moderate prize to all three finalists and calling it done?
This kind of thing is a constant hazard with online polls, and your security's easy to get around. (You can trust that I don't use my knowledge, as Dana's not in first place.) It's difficult to be fair when the entrant is not necessarily responsible for the vote-stuffing, but at this point, things feel tainted enough that it might be prudent to distribute hugs all 'round, learn from the experience, and move forward.
How about put three random $$$ amounts in a hat, and the finalists' names in another, and randomly assign an amount to each finalist. Then they can decide which charity gets the amount they won. I'd hope it would be an animal-related charity; there are enough of them out there.
Bob, you done good. I still wish the guinea pig condo could have come in first. I do guinea pig rescue and every expo and pet fair I'm in, it's dog dog dog dog cat cat.
I loved Dana's litterbox entry, though Aquarabbit gets my vote for the gold star since her entry is something I can easily do myself, and it's cheap - plus, it's easily to make it look like whatever your home looks like by buying the right color 24 inch wide bli...n...d...s... Oh. Hang on. I'm a dummy! Aquarabbit *IS* Dana! I mean, sheesh! Well, in that case, I'm glad she's a winner too. I was thinking of the litterbox entry from AT NY (the litter Trunk, which I also liked but costs more).
Awe hell... Aquarabbit's such a winner in my book already (if I had a book, that is).
OK, I'm shutting up now.
Huge congrats to all! This contest definitely gave me lots of great ideas, so I thank all of the entrants for that. Cheers!
aw rob, you are always too sweet. and wende, you are always the smartest girl in the room. Wende for president!