Mark Udall Stuffing The Internet Ballot Box

From time to time we get a Google Alert on Digg mentioning Mark Udall. We're not going to claim that we understand the Digg process, but it is very easy to tell when someone is manipulating the system.

That someone is janus303 whose reading list and recommendation list appears to be limited to Mark Udall's web site. He has 11 Diggs and all of them are Udall related. Eight are from Mark Udall's site, including one from a Udall fund raising pitch.

We've admitted to being cynical, and a cynic would immediately go to the Udall site to see if the campaign was publicizing it's Digg hits. It is!

If they had 20 or 30 or 40 Diggs piled on each page, it might not be so obvious that the campaign was stuffing the Internet ballot box. They don't. Including janus303's 11 Diggs, there have been a total of 27 Diggs.

The Mark Udall Campaign is inept when it publicizes the small number of Diggs it is getting and allows someone who is willing to do just a small amount of "digging" to do an analysis like this. It is just another form of deception, of lying.

Edited to add: Janus303 was polite enough to "Digg" this entry, so we paid him the courtesy of a full response.