RAP Tax: Poll Results

In 2004 a RAP tax was defeated by the electorate in Davis County. This November a .1 percent RAP tax will be on the ballot again

1. I oppose the RAP tax 5 (83%)
2. I favor the RAP tax 1 (16%)
3. I don't know what RAP means 0 (0%)

Polling Glitch: RAP Tax

Earlier this morning I posted a poll on the RAP tax, but have had to take it down because of some technical difficulties. The polling engine that Blogger uses only allows so much space for text, and I was running off the page.

I'll rephrase the question and repost the poll.

Poll Results: Lame-Duck Tax Increase

In December, a Lame-Duck Commission approved a 49.5% increase for Jail Expansion, Flood prevention, and Senior Services.

• I supported the tax increase....3 (13%)
• I opposed the tax increase....14 (63%)
• I supported part of the tax increase....3 (13%)
• What tax increase?....2 (9%)

Votes taken: 22

Oppose Tax Increase: Eight Days Left

You may not have seen the poll that's running on the sidebar of this blog. There are only fourteen votes so far. Please take the opportunity to vote now if you haven't already. If you have voted, and can figure out a way to cheat, please vote against the tax increase that happened last December!

Keep in mind, there is an inaccuracy on the poll indicating that the tax increase was 49.5%, but that is actually the budgetary spending increase.

Fun With Polls

Blogger has added a polling engine, which I'm now testing. You may remember that I garnered some local fame for admitting to hacking a local Clipper poll.

Of course, lots of folks hacked that poll, but I alone admitted to it.

Just understand that I have very little faith in the legitimacy of this poll that I will be running. If you hack it, then it will be fairly obvious.

I think it more than likely that I will only have one or two votes anyway.

Update: I see two votes! I can sleep tonight.

Update: It's been pointed out to me that the 49.5% increase is not a tax increase, but an increase in this years proposed budget! This is far more damning for the current commission than the lame-duck commission! The County portion of the increase approved last December is actually 32.3%.

Did your spending this year increase by 50%?

It seems that there are none innocent in this affair!

2006: The Best and Worst ideas in Davis County

Best

• Running an campaign with no Special Interest money--This concept needs to be picked up by more candidates. What better way is there to keep special interest from influencing a candidates judgement than keeping money out of the equation?
• Citizen Bloggers that question the Candidates--Many have done this, but few have gone the extra mile that this anonymous individual has.
  
• Early Voting
• Blogging Politics--Special thanks goes to my guest bloggers: Natalie, and Allie for bailing me out while I was away.

Worst

• 37% tax hike--There are two reasons this is a bad idea. First, it was a lame-duck commission that passed it. Second, the tax increase, itself, could not be justified.
• Twenty-one(21) years of defrauding the School district--Need I say more?
  
• Running an campaign with no Special Interest money--It turns out that running without Special Interest money may not win elections in the real world.
• A poorly implemented online poll--The Clipper gets all the credit for this one.
• Hacking a "poorly implemented online poll"--I, and my anonymous adversaries, will take the credit.
• A NSL Name change--Can an idea that never came to fruition be a bad idea? Yes!

The jury is still out on whether a lawsuit against the school district was beneficial. I think the parents may have taken things too far with fake stories, and inflammatory comments, but it did shed some light on a government body that could do with some light.

Centerville clears up Main Street confusion

Standard practice for the Clipper is to publish only a single perspective per article. They seldom query more than one individual or body when considering the facts.

Case in point, my appearance in the Clipper when their online poll was revealed to be accurate. I was never contact, but the Clipper copied wholesale from my blog in writing the story.

All this being said, makes me hesitant to even link to the Clipper at all, save that sunlight will only reveal the chinks, and defects in the paper.

The Clipper today considers the merits of creating a mass-transit corridor in Centerville's downtown and quote extensively from its proponents.

I wonder what Centerville Citizen blog thinks?

Change to BETA Blogger

You may have noticed a change in the blog since last night. I made the jump to the new Blogger format, and in so doing, I've lost my old comments.

I used a different engine, Haloscan, for my comments than the average Blogspot user. I liked them, but I'm not sure if anyone else did. So, I'm doing a little poll. Vote and let me know if you prefer the vanilla comments, or if you want me to put in the bells and whistles?

An Online Poll:Do you steal lawn signs?

I thought I'd try my hand at an online poll. I know, those who know me are going to think this is ironic. I mean, I'm the guy that hacked the Clipper poll. Well, just so you know, you're free to hack this one if you want. I won't be offended. And, we aren't going to put this in any of the 'Standard Works' of the County.

Clipper:NSL still looking at possible name change

It's time I weigh in seriously on the proposed name change for North Salt Lake. I would agree with so many others that a name change would be costly, confusing, and (looking for a c-word).

Now the Council is looking at the cost of doing an opinion poll on the matter. They really don't need to ask this question because, I can tell you now, Poll's gonna cost 'em!

The City Council is supposed to meet on Monday. Will there be a forum for public input at that meeting?

All North Salt Laker's tend to abbreviate the name as 'NSL'. Now, if the name is changed, what are we going to do? 'OH'? O-Hill'? The 'Orchard H'?

My associates have already commented here.

NSL still looking at possible name change

From the North Salt Lake Star

"The proposed name change for North Salt Lake City is still under consideration. The City Council has decided to have a public opinion poll conducted and a cost analysis completed before moving forward with a possible name change."

If you are wondering how we feel, here's my letter to the Clipper published June 22nd.

And here is Alice's letter published the same day.

The Perfect Poll: Security via Solicitation

I just realized the security of an online poll depends on one thing. Affiliate Marketing. Take the following poll question which I think is impervious to tampering. Pay specific attention to the second line.

"Is President Bush a good President?

Click here and get a free laptop."

No self-respecting hacker, worth his keyboard, has the guts to click on such a thing. So, all the Clipper needs to do to improve their polling is offer to give away something big that spawns other big offers, and so on, and so on...

But, if they want to know what hackers think, they can keep doing what they do best.

Clippertoday:Inside Story-Manipulation of online polling hurts all of us

Treasure the Clipper

The Clipper is an amazing paper!

No, really! I am astounded when I do read it. One never knows what can, and will, be printed in it's pages. Let me offer one example.

Rolf Koecher at the Clipper wrote an article about me last week without contacting me for comment. He did seem to have talked to one other party regarding the incident (Rob Miller), but did not quote anyone else. The article was about an opinion poll that pitted Dannie McConkie against Bret Millburn and Rob Miller. I would think that a balanced reporter would also have tried to get a comment from Millburn after writing, "In a Monday afternoon conversation with Rob Miller over this incident, he told me he had seen an outpouring of support from all quarters — not just from those in Davis County — judging from the huge volume of e-mail he had received over the poll." There was not a single statement from Millburn in the entire article!

Two is not a few?

Apparently, the Clipper has had more incidents than this. (italics are mine)

"The company that hosts our Web site manages sites for well over 100 newspapers across America. They’ve had few problems in their other markets — except for here. So we’ve asked them to beef up their security measures a second time. "

If I'm to understand the above paragraph correctly, other markets haven't been without incident regarding security. They've had "few" problems elsewhere. The implication is that we've had two incidents with security on the Clipper website. What was the first incident? If we've, actually, only had this one incident, then it is impossible that we have had more problems than other markets that have seen "few", not zero, incidents. It seems to me that our market isn't that different at all.

No online poll is perfect but this is the worst I've ever seen. The least the Clipper Poll could do is record IP addresses when votes are cast so to prevent duplicate votes from the same machine. This is already done by other online polls.The Clipper has repeatedly demonstrated it's own mediocrity in it's reporting. It seldom gives all parties a fair hearing. It should at least try to give those it opposes the credit that it gives itself.

Clippertoday:Inside Story-Manipulation of online polling hurts all of us

The Clipper Online Poll

I have had a few assumptions regarding the state of Utah political thought.

First, there are more Democrats in the blogosphere than Republicans. Second, there are more Republicans who will vote than Democrats. Third, online insta-polling is flawed.

Thinking I knew enough, I sabotaged the Clipper online poll.

It was always my intention to make this known, but not for the reason that I am now. I knew that the results of the poll could not be trusted and I knew many across the divide knew that as well- but they weren't saying anything about it as long as their guy was winning. I figured two things would happen if ballots were stuffed in Milburn's box. First, that the ballot stuffing would be recognized and exposed. Second, that one or more people would retaliate and that Miller's box would become very full. At this point I thought that the poll would be seen as a loss, the results in question, and shutdown.

On the last point I was very wrong.

The poll was shutdown but, somehow, the results of that poll seem to be held inviolate. I wish to apologize to any whose opinion has been changed, or not, as a result of my manipulation. What I did may not have been illegal, but it was wrong. Just because a process is flawed does not mean that trust in that process should be violated without regard. It was not my intention to swing favor in the direction of any one candidate (I placed a number of votes in McConkie's box with that in mind), but I did swing favor and I feel awful about it. I ask of any that read this to not let a tainted poll show a candidate's quality, but let the candidate's themselves show it. It wasn't "cheating", for any one candidate, it was monkeywrenching for none.

Revealing my part in this charade was supposed to be satisfying. It has been anything but that. It has, however, been entirely voluntary. If I did one good thing, in the end, it was to come clean anyway.