Now that we know that Liz McCartney is the 2008 CNN Hero of the Year, it’s time to start reflecting on the selection process. One issue that easily comes to my mind is the unfairness of the web based popular vote method used in declaring the winner. I am not saying this because my compatriot, Marie da Silva, did not win. I am also not trying to suggest that Liz was not the deserved winner. All the ten nominees are special people and their works are phenomenal.
But the popular vote was not the best way for selecting the winner as it gave an upper hand to nominees from richer countries such as USA where a lot of people can readily access the Internet. Even my own compatriot, Marie, because of her Los Angeles connection, had an upper hand compared to the likes of Yohannes Gebregeorgis from Ethiopia and Phymean Noun from Cambodia.
To make matters worse, the voting system did not put any limits on the number of times one could vote. I think CNN was using this exercise as a way of boosting traffic to their website. It was very unfair as it made it very easy for people with good Internet connections to call, email one another and set up voting networks for their man or woman. With these kind of developments, it was very easy for a US based nominee like Liz McCartney to carry the day.
My advice to CNN as they start planning for the 2009 episode is that they must borrow a leaf from the way FIFA selects the world footballer of the year .Voting should be restricted to a group of professional people from all over the world.
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5 users commented in " 2008 CNN Hero of the Year:The selection process was wrong! "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbacki agree, the process is definitely biased to richer countries like america.
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Surely, their voting method is really something for discussing. For, unfortunately we can’t do much there, because they were organizers. Such issues always happen when you don’t have some limitations in voting systems.
George´s last blog post..SeaWorld Orlando
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I couldn’t agree more. I believe online voting systems are extremely biased. In fact I just heard a story about how certain colleges used fraudulent techniques to try and win a certain online college contest, every major college created fraudulent votes so that they were ‘disqualified’ and some unknown small private school won.
Frank´s last blog post..Roadside Romeo (2008)
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i hear what you’re saying about the fact that the internet voting process creates a bias toward richer countries…but on the subject of the multiple votes; you have to keep in mind that as far as i can figure the only way that they could limit the vote amount would be to make it one vote per computer (unless you have to create an account to vote, which i assume was probably not the case…) and if more than one person shares a computer and internet connection then that would be unfair to them.
still; i must admit that the fact that people could vote more than once totally negates the legitimacy of the whole thing.
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I think you are right..there are so many people voting for a single nominee and many of them make it a situation of Life or Death if their favorite doesn’t win…and here comes the real problem..they start searching for alternatives to make their favorite win..start voting fake..start making new blogs, articles and ask for vote..this hides the real talent of different nominees and so there is ambiguity in the system..
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