Bristol Palin boosted by Tea Party vote fraud

Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin's daughter, is a mediocre dancer. I've watched every episode of Dancing With the Stars this season, so I can testify to that. She's been in the bottom two many times, saved only by viewer votes -- not the judge's scores.

Last night Bristol made it into next week's final (top three will compete) by beating out Brandy, a far superior dancer. Brandy got 57 points from the judges on Monday, the competition night, including perfect 10's for her Tango, while Bristol got 53.

What bugs me -- a lot -- about the viewer voting is that Tea Party types appear to have hijacked it in a fraudulent manner for purely political ends. The rest of the blogosphere also is ticked off about this, for good reason.

When I went to vote for Jennifer Grey Monday night by phone after watching the recorded episode fairly late in the evening, I got a message that voting could only be done on the ABC web site now.

OK. I dutifully clicked on the "vote" button and was met with a request to register. I entered my real email address, along with other genuine information, and got to cast five votes.

I played the Dancing With the Stars voting game fairly.

But there's been a concerted effort by Tea Party types to make a political statement by elevating Bristol Palin into the finals (or even the championship, a dreadful thought) through fraudulent voting.

By fraudulent, I mean that ABC clearly intends that one person get five votes. Or at least, that one real email address gets five votes. However, the Jezebel web site has revealed "How Palin conservatives are cheating the DWTS voting system."

It's been alleged that the Tea Party's "Operation Bristol" is keeping the teen mom in the competition. However, the real conspiracy is that her conservative supporters have figured out a way to exploit ABC.com's email-voting feature, allowing infinite votes.

While Bristol Palin denies any Tea Party conspiracy theories, there's no denying that conservatives have been pushing for votes for Bristol, using blogs and Twitter to start a movement.

But what isn't widely known is the evidence—via message board comments on some conservative sites—that this mobilization involves fixing this (albeit meaningless) election through a technical snafu on ABC's website, which allows Palin's supporters to cast an infinite number of email votes:

Here's a hint: They don't have to be VALID email addresses to register them with ABC.com, there is apparently no validation process. The just have to be formatted like a valid email address, and you must use a valid zip code and a birthdate that makes you old enough to vote. I'm voting like a democrat, all night long…

No, it doesn't have to be a valid email address – I had one of my anonymous ones [email protected] that I used, and then just did the sign-up process all over again with [email protected] and it worked.

Got my 80 votes in online…took 2 hours. I am beat

I only got 42 in, I have some catching up to do!

Lord have mercy, I voted for 3 hours online! I got 300 in.

It doesn't bother me that conservatives are voting for Bristol Palin, even though she's a worse dancer than almost everybody who has been eliminated from Dancing With the Stars this season.

What irritates me, big time, is that the show's producers and ABC decided to make a political statement by featuring Bristol and her mother, Sarah, in a mid-term election year. (Sarah is shown in the front row at many of the competitions, and she's also featured in background stories about Bristol.)

This vitually guaranteed that Dancing With the Stars would morph into politics-centered viewer voting by Tea Party zealots. Many, if not most, could care less about the show, Bristol Palin, or dancing.

For example, here's what one right-winger says:

For conservatives, enjoy the fun of finally, at last, getting a taste of what it’s like to be a Democrat.  You can vote as much as you want. You can vote using all sorts of names.  You can vote all day. You can’t get paid to vote, because you aren’t really a Democrat, silly, but you can get as close as you can possibly get without being in a union or taking part in ACORN.

Dancing With the Stars made a big mistake in allowing political activism to take over an entertainment show in a fraudulent manner. I've lost all confidence in the DWTS voting system, and now view the finale as a joke.

My only reason for watching will be to see how many people in the audience boo if Bristol Palin wins the Mirror Ball trophy, which she has an excellent chance of doing given how Tea Party folks are willing to cheat in order to stack the voting for a bad dancer.

Comments

[Bill T.]

So, by you're own admission you cast "5 votes", but in the same breath cry about "fraud"? Care to explain that?

[Dan Gellner]

Brian really? Voter fraud for a contest in which you can vote multiple times? You are a little too wound up on this. Especially with the stakes so high. Everything has become a right wing conspiracy. I mean good God, (or whatever for you) think of how screwed up America will be politically if she wins it? You are really working to hard to drag political stance into this. If it truly were a liberal/conservative battle, the liberals would have rigged the outcome weeks ago. Just like every election. :)

[Rain]

I don't watch the show but have been following what is happening and have watched a few of the dancers on YouTube. Bristol mostly didn't even dance, more walked through it and yet I agree with you, she's likely to win because of cheating-- cheating the tea partiers are proud of doing. What does that say about them? I tend to feel sorry for Bristol as she will someday realize all of this and it will be very damaging to her. I think she wanted to think this would be about her. Maybe by now she doesn't care either how she wins. It's just plain sad and what the Palins teach their kids about moral choices is even sadder.

[Joe]

Bristol tries really hard and she realizes that she is well outclassed.
If she were to win this competition I am sure that she would be ashamed to accept the trophy when she knows down deep she is not anywhere near the best.
She has greatly improved but let's be real, she is not the best and no matter how long she practices, she will remain "not bad".

[Blogger Brian]

Bill, it's easy to explain: ABC allows people to vote five times for the contestants after you've registered with an email address and other information. I just followed the rules.

The Tea Party folks didn't. They made up fake email addresses in order to game the voting system. One person didn't vote five times, like I did; some made up 60 fake email addresses and voted 300 times for Bristol Palin.

To me, that's fraud.

Dan, when you find evidence that liberals have rigged elections, you need to tell the authorities so they can file charges. Since I bet you haven't done that, I guess you're just spreading unfounded rumors.

I don't mind if Bristol Palin wins Dancing With the Stars if she wins fairly. But to rig the voting through fake email addresses....that just shows how desperate the Tea Party is to give the Palin name more publicity, even though Bristol is a poor dancer.

[Harley]

Get a life everyone it is a game show. If the best dancers won no one would watch the show after week 2 or 3. It is ll about ratings. You can't blame Bristol for the stupidity of anyone dialing in and thinking it will change the price of a cup of coffee

Relax and laugh at the show or don't watch it. It is a show not reality. Personally I like Jennifer the best but dislike her drama queen attitude

[Dan Gellner]

What if it's not the Tea Party? It could just be a bunch of friends from Alaska? It could be a bunch of teenagers, or an unwed mothers fellowship or maybe a group of disgruntled husbands that are mad because the show is on during Monday Night Football, or interrupted bowling night. My point is you are oversensitivly (yeah that's not a real word) political. You seem to think everything has to do with politics. That's gotta be a hard life to live.

[elizabeth]

Like mother, like daughter, neither one has a moral compass.

[elizabeth]

It's about time for Bristol and Sarah Palin to get over themselves and back to Alaska to take care of two innocent babies.

[Kate R]

Bristol Palin's dancing is horrendous and lacks elegance, and is in no way deserving of getting to the finals. Obviously she has learned from her mother that incompetence should be rewarded...well, that and having unethical supporters who lie and cheat so that an undeserving person wins over someone who actually merits the award.

[Robert]

True, this is only a game show. BUT, if your tea party cohorts would go to such unethical lengths to promote Palin by such obvious methods, one shudders to think what they were capable of doing if the cause were truly important. What is even worse is that the producers of DWTS MUST know what is occurring if not actually facilitating events given that Sara Palin is given so much face time. Could it be the producers simply thought using Palin would boost ratings and instead got taken themselves?

[Connie]

Wow...If Bristol can win DWTS fairly, then she deserves the trophy. Although it is not her fault that these tea baggers are cheating, Bristol's reputation is tainted still. What a travesty to Brandi that this has happen. Brandi should have been in the top three. I was looking forward to seeing Brandi and Jennifer go after the trophy which I believe Jennifer will win anyway. It would have been great to see them both in battle for the win of the trophy. As of right now, I will not be watching the finale. I will never watch DWTS again. I am done... That's it for me....DWTS Blows and Sucks....Sarah Palin and her tea bagger followers have destroy the credibility of this show and ABC should be a shame of themselves and the DWTS judges should carry some of this shame as well. No one is going to do anything about this. The Show will go on as if nothing has happen... DWTS has lost it's credibility and I will never watch this show ever again....

[Blogger Brian]

Dan, there's solid evidence that the fraudulent voting was indeed the work of Tea Party folks and other conservatives. Check out...

http://www.conservativegirlwithavoice.com/2010/11/its-monday-which-means-its-bristol.html

http://hillbuzz.org/2010/11/15/bristol-palin-dancing-with-the-stars-watch-thread-4/#comment-315550

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bristol-palin-dancing-stars-tea-party-republican-conspiracy/story?id=12159449

http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2010/11/dancing-with-the-stars-tea-party-conspiracy-boosted-bristol-to-the-final-competition/

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b210611_tea_party_really_behind_bristol_palins.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-04/-pistol-palin-waltzes-through-abc-s-dance-contest-with-tea-party-support.html

[Benjamin @ Beaver Journal]

The palins are just trying to make money they will sell themselves out to the highest bidder.

[Cheryl]

Come on now, Because Sarah Palin sits in the audiance and is featured in clips makes this a political statement?? Jennifer's husband has been in the front row and in clips, Kyle's family has been in the front row and in clips - everyone has their support people front and center, why is Bristol to be expected not to????
This political crap has me ticked more than any outcome of the show itself.

[tucson]

In the long run nobody is going to care who won DWS. Is Sarah going to make it a cornerstone of her presidential campaign that her daughter made it to the finals?

This is not a big deal except that the producers of these talent competition shows need to fix the bugs in their voting systems. I remember American Idol had some questionable votes by computerized speed dialing a few years back.

My concern is that if these shows can be hacked, probably elections are being tampered with as well.

[Randy]

This is and always has been, half a dancing proficiency show and half a popularity contest. One can be popular for lots of reasons. Bristol really isn't that bad and is the kind of contestant that is always popular on DWTS. She's a non-professional going up against show biz professionals including one pro dancer, and two pro performers. I think she will win the whole shebang. Keep your shotgun handy.

[Anthony and Nita Cinquina]

This is the first season we have watched Dancing wwith the Stars---and it is the last! Professional judges should have more weight in determining the dancers abilities,NOT the voting public. That has been obvious from the beginning of this season. Wake up folks. Take a good look at what has happened these past weeks. If you are truly interested in fairness YOU WILL ACT!

[Matt]

It may just be a stupid show. But the fact that Palin supporters are advocating voter fraud, regardless of how trivial it may be, really says something about the integrity of their "movement". The proof is in the comments section of the second link that blogger brian posted.

I'm mildly irritated by this but this guy was pissed.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2010-11-17-dancing-rage_N.htm

[Dan Gellner]

Yeah, that dude had a lot of special meds too. He has the full six pack, but not the plastic thing that holds it all together. This phone/email voting thing is the same thing that has plagued all "reality" type shows that run live or in the current week. You really can't take serious competition where people who know nothing, or don't care, or have intent to manipulate... have control over the outcome. If it were real, there would be judges... (not celebrities) with credentials and they would determine winners. But it is more fun to have all these people that are not supposed to be serious dancers, being judged by non real judges, and advanced by not caring emailers and phoners. This is Prime Time at it's best.

[Randy]

http://insidetv.ew.com/2010/11/19/dwts-bristol-palin-tea-party-voting-conspiracy/

[connie]

I don't think Bristol is a bad person, but I really resent it when she said "she wasn't going to let all the haters out there stop her." I don't believe anyone hates her, they just don't believe it is fair to the dancers who can dance and belong in the final three.

[Randy]

I was very wrong about Bristol winning. She came across better when she didn't say much. Those Palins all have a chip on their shoulder. A lackluster season made somewhat interesting by the Bristol thing.

I had to go YouTube and watch Mel B and Max do their Viennese Waltz, the best single dance in the history of DWTS.

[qp]

A lot of folks blame Tea Partiers for voting for Bristol. Some may not know the Tea Party was started way before Palin came on the scene and is a real conservative leaning branch of the Rep party. (Palin just jumped on the bandwagon to try and garner votes for upcoming elections. There are several names of Tea Partys because higher ups do not want Conservative values to gain any momentum and therefore use the name Tea Party Express and others to act disorderly, etc therefore leaving a bad name for the original Tea Party. I am a REal Conservative and have attended a Tea Party meeting just to see what goes on. And believe me Sarah Palin's name was not even mentioned. If you attend a Tea Party and they mention Palin, you will know you are in one of the infiltrator parties.