Prosperity Mine Recent News and Notes

I thought I would run through some recent news on the Prosperity Mine just to keep myself and all of you updated. I've picked out some things I hope you find interesting.


Globe and Mail Says YES Side Manipulated Mine Poll


The Globe sponsored a web poll back in October to measure public opinion on Taseko Mines' Prosperity Mine project. I followed the poll at the time and wrote encouraging the NO side to vote. Well it turns out that some NO side keeners (the First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining) were actually watching the poll results as they came. Turns out the YES side managed to rack up the majority of its votes in the last few hours before the poll closed, some 3000 votes in that short time.

That was enough to create a  54% lead in the opinion poll. How did they do it?

According to Globe Communities Editor Jennifer MacMillan this sort of thing isn't uncommon. While the Globe's polling system doesn't allow you to vote more than once, enthusiastic voters can simply press the "delete cookies" button on their web browser and they system thinks they are new to town. In this way, multiple voting is easy to accomplish.

Vote YES, delete cookies. Rinse and repeat!

I suppose, to be fair, the NO side could have done the same thing, but there is nothing to indicate that happened. The Globe stresses that "the polls at globeandmail.com are meant to be entertaining for readers, rather than scientific".

Fair warning!