MTV's Movie Smackdown 2012 Contest

[Mysterious Benefactor]

A person (or one IP) is limited to voting 70 times in a (roughly) 2.5 hour time frame.  Would this stop the voting programs?

You would think so, but no. MTV's poll checks IP addresses, but some voting software is apparently clever enough to somehow change IP addresses - even on computers that always have the same IP address (what's known as a static IP address, as opposed to a dynamic IP address, which changes every time the computer logs on to the Internet). The only people who receive that time limit are those of us who have the same IP address all the time...

[Cousin_Barnabas]

That is very disconcerting.  I was hoping my experiment would be able to give us some hope against the Twilight voting machine (I'm hoping it gets that far)!  Well, at least it added to the DS total and helped me procrastinate a bit longer!   

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I see it's now DS leading with 52.39% vs. 47.61%. This is going to be a nail biter. Well, if nothing underhanded happens...

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Shadows has hopefully staked Spidey for good.  When does the next round begin?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Sometime tomorrow. But I won't stop holding my breath that DS has successfully made it to the next round until it actually does. Too many underhanded things have happened in these polls - particularly the MTV polls - for me to feel confident it has made it...

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Very true.  But, hopefully the Spiderman fans are above that and can just accept that their movie isn't going to be as good as ours.   

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, I don't know if that's what they should accept.    Though maybe they should accept that the DS fans voting in the poll appear to be more dedicated than they've been.    But voting for the first round isn't over yet, so...

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Whatever helps them sleep at night...   

Looks like Shadows won.  Now it is up against the Dark Knight.  This is where it's going to get tricky.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Just noticed that the first round of voting has closed and DS has remained victorious: 61.82% vs. 38.18%. And in the next round DS will go up against The Dark Knight Rises (which was victorious in its battle: 52.17% vs. 47.83%) and its fate there is anything but certain IMO. But time will tell.

Also, there are some interesting, or should I say seemingly paranoid comments in the comments section for the poll. I don't honestly think MTV fixes any of the outcomes (though if your film didn't do well, I can see where someone might have sour grapes enough to think so) but there is no doubt that some of the voting in the qualification round (as well as MTV's previous poll) was certainly done with voting software. Who knows about the other battles in round 1? However, I seriously doubt MTV was behind the use of such software...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Now it is up against the Dark Knight.  This is where it's going to get tricky.

GMTA.   

Quite honestly, I wouldn't be at all surprised if DS is trounced in round 2. But we shall see...

[jimbo]

I think the Johnny Depp fans helped big time and we will need them in this round for sure.

[jimbo]

Next round is opened. Closes Monday. http://www.mtv.com/content/news/2011/movie_brawl_2012/

[Mysterious Benefactor]

DS will need help from a lot of quarters. 

Currently DS is leading 55.72 % vs. 44.28%. But it would be dangerous to get confident in that because when I looked into the poll earlier this morning those percentages were basically switched in favor of The Dark Knight Rises, so I strongly suspect the leading percentage is going to flip-flop between films - at least during this initial voting.

[jimbo]

It is going to be a tough battle. TDKR is beating DS 57.4 to 42.6

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, we expected it to flip back the other way. And at this early stage every vote really counts because it's still possible for DS to regain the lead. Well, unless voting software gets into the proceedings so soon. If that happens, DS is as good as dead so far as round 2 goes..