Hello everyone!!  I need to get this off of my chest, today.  I now know why tharedhead would rather have a biopsy than enter a voting contest!!!!  I think I would, too.  I was told that the voting for this pathetic contest would end at midnight last night.  We have been staying in 2nd place all week.  This has been perfect because both the 1st and 2nd place winners win the same trip.  Well...last night before I went to bed, I did some sweeping and checked the contest page just to make sure all was well.  It wasn't.  The couple that was in 3rd place had started racking up votes and FAST!!!!!!  I knew that if you deleted cookies, you could vote over and over but had chosen not to.  I would like to say that I am above that, but the truth is we had not needed to.  When I saw what was happening, I did start trying to hang on to our lead.  I really was not too worried because it was almost midnight and voting closes at midnight, right???  Wrong.  Midnight came...we had 669 votes and the cheaters had 545 and voting did not close.  This crazy voting went on for most of the night.  It became clear that they had more than one person doing this cookie deleting business, because they passed me and I could not catch up.  I was also on an old computer and it kept freezing up because of pop-ups. ( Did I mention that I hate NETFlix?!?!?!?)  At 3am, we had 943 votes and the cheaters had 1037!!!  Sometime after this, the 1st place couple started racking up votes, too.  It became clear to me that I could not catch them......so I stopped.  The contest page, as of about an hour ago, says that voting has ended.  The cheaters have more than 2000 votes, now.  At midnight they had 545....crazy, huh?????  I have emailed the general mgr., the sales dept. and the promotions dept. at WBIR, but alas, no word back from them....It would have been so much more fair to draw names out of a hat!!!!!  The winners will be on the local afternoon news, but I will not be watching.  I will be watching another station.  (like they care!?!?!)  I am sorry that this is so long...I am just so bleeping bleep bleep!!!!!  I would like to end this by saying a HUGE thanks to all of you who so graciously helped me with this stupid contest!!!!  I will continue to vote for my fellow SA members, but I hope to stay FAR FAR away from voting contests, for myself!!!  I hope you all have a great WINNING day.  Happy Sweeping!

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that people are cheating.  Even in the best of regulated voting contests, this always seems to happen right near the end.  One of the main reasons I won't do them anymore.

More times than not, what is happening, entrants are making a last-minute rally of members at website(s) they belong to.

At another site, they'll even give certain members a banner on the homepage soliciting votes usually sometime after the contest started.

Duplicate votes, usually end up being deleted anyway even if someone were to be cheating.

Plus, the vote tally you see is still up for verification or correction by the sponsor.

  and that my dear is the world of voting contests on the internet. So sorry. I can only imagine your frustration at the last minutes of this contest. Don't completely give up hope, wait and see what the sponsors have to say. Best of Luck to you in winning a vacation sweeps that doesn't involve votes!

On the Disney one I did, I recognized one of those entries I was talking about above to be from the "other site".

I know not everyone knows what we're talking about with "the other" site, but not many of their members are given the courtesy of getting a vote solicitation banner on the homepage.  Only the select few.

Bingo!

...and many have emailed the sponsors the same sentiment.

Apparently, they have these voting contests as a tool to create more traffic to their site(s).

Don't they get tired of seeing the same 220 people? (20 times each )

I bookmarked that site and voted daily - 3x: 1x for each of us, and saw that HUGE spike in votes  and was SO disappointed for you sarcdyer!!! 

I hope they police their contest, but I wouldn't hold my breath - I guess this is one of those nasty life lessons, huh?

And btw - IF there was any cheating {not up to me to determine/point fingers} then don't fret - they WILL pay for it!!! I don't do revenge because I've learned that those who mess me over ALWAYS end up paying for their bad behavior {just learned the final 2 of 5 people who did me wrong a few years back finally got theirs  } so just stick to your morals/ethics and DON'T allow this to get you down!!! 

I never have and never will enter a vote for me or even a sponsor judged sweeps - waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much work for this lazy sweeper!!! 

Uh wait...this is not a thread about vd?

Seriously though, I really hate what happened to you.  Don't be afraid of following through with your complaint.  Write actual letters to the people you emailed.  This lends a more personal, yet professional touch.  Just a thought.........