Thanks to one of our readers for pointing this out. Earlier, Achilles posted about the American "Family" Association's marriage poll and several posters wondered why anyone would trust the AFA to fairly conduct such a poll. It turns out they were right to be cynical and mistrusting of this upstanding and moral organization.

An astute observer noticed that unlike votes in places other than Florida and where Diebold machines are used, the number of votes for the answer, "I favor legalization of homosexual marriage" went down rather than up as the AFA cooked the books. In the first screen shot at 10:57 AM, the percentage is 16.10 (21075 votes); in the second taken at 11:22, it is 14.05 (17985 votes). One person commented in the comments area of the posting at 11:33 that it was down to 13%.

The AFA claims that it was just removing multiple votes from "someone on the pro-homosexual side of the issue" because of course, that many votes couldn't possibly come from actual people, now could they? I trust they've gone and validated that nobody's run a script against the votes opposing gay marriage too, right? Note that the poll requires you to enter your name, email address and zip code; surely these had to be unique for the votes to be accepted the first time. If it were anybody other than the AFA, I might be willing to grant them the benefit of the doubt and believe their story, but this is the AFA. They're known liars who'll do and say anything, no matter how morally reprehensible to get their way.

In any case, the fact that they have admitted that they've manually adjusted the numbers invalidates the poll. Its results, no matter what they are, cannot now be trusted. The AFA has doctored the results of this poll and admitted to it. Will they be telling that to Congress when they present their findings?

---Nick

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