"Huh?" you ask. Occasionally, a minority of CommonVoice.com readers need to be reminded not to misuse the system. If your conscience isn't bothering you right now, you don't need to read the rest. If you're blushing at the moment read on.

I knew something was up when I started seeing a multitude of notices of undeliverable mail appear in the CommonVoice.com mailbox. This is the first sign of a spammer getting a hold of the Candidate at the Top feature. Some one was taking E-mail addresses and trying to "stack the deck" for their candidate by entering other people's addresses. Of course, it doesn't work very well if you put in bogus addresses! It just makes the editor mad to get his mailbox filled up.

Then I got a message from a person who had fallen prey to the spammer. This person didn't understand why when they came to vote, they saw they had already voted. Here is my reply:

Lenna,

Here is what I believe has happened. Someone went to the Candidate at the Top page and entered your E-mail address. Of course, the message went to you. You did the obvious thing and clicked on the link. When you did so, it counted your vote!

The reason why you can't vote now is because I created the system to not allow people to vote twice.

I do not like it that someone did this. I have noticed a high volume of messages returning to the system as undeliverable. This happens when someone uses E-mail addresses that are not his own. It is unethical and could ultimately cause me to remove this feature. I do not want it used to harass people!

I will be glad to remove your vote from the system so that you can come and vote your own choice. I should be able to do this for you tonight. Visit tomorrow and cast your vote and you will see how the feature is supposed to work.

I apologize for this unethical behavior. I wish I could prevent it.

Jonathan Pait
Editor
CommonVoice.com

Cut it out. Grow up. You should be ashamed of yourself.