How do you feel about cheating on charity web contests?

After an exciting and successful day with this post, it was disheartening to see that some competing organizations are clearly cheating. Second Chance Pet Adoption in Elk Grove, IL went from less than 500 votes to over 3000 votes in a matter of about 15 minutes. Having been an active voter recruiter for the past 24 hours, I know how unlikely this is. Clearly, that organization (along with likely the organizations in second and third place) are cheating. The organization in 4th place (Gainesville Pet Rescue) and on have not cheated, as I’ve been monitoring their progress, and although they’re doing a great job, it has been over a reasonable amount of time.

My current question is a sincere one, and I don’t believe the answer is immediately obvious. There’s a lot at stake here, as $5000 will do a lot for the two organizations who win.

If the webmasters at Petfinder are savvy enough, they should be able to moderate cheating. But is it fair to disqualify organizations because someone cheated in order to advance the score? The person who cheated may have had nothing to do with the organization, and it is potentially unfair for Petfinder to disqualify an organization because of something that had nothing to do with them.

Another thing to consider is that “cheating” is part of the contest. Maybe part of the contest is seeing if you have smart-enough supporters to put forth the effort and that any way you can achieve votes is fair game.

It was upsetting to see us go from 5th place to completely off the Top 10 Chart because of those who cheated. Still, I’m honestly not sure how I feel about such “cheating” in this contest. Please share your thoughts.

Either way, I haven’t given up. I have a facebook group going, and depending on how it snowballs, anything could happen. Thanks again for all of your wonderful support.