It appears somebody set up a distributed human or robot voting group to cast votes purporting to be from Niger.
More than 5000 votes had been cast by the time we noticed this.
Those votes have been disqualified and the IP addresses of the voters banned for the moment.
A close look at the data and the server logs showed that this concerted effort, be it human or robot in nature, did not originate in Niger.
We are considering a new authentication method that would require you to enter an e-mail address and answer an automated e-mail to "activate" your vote.
If you have a strong opinion on that subject, please let us know so we can make the best decision.
We are also considering other anti-vote-spamming measures, but in answer to the obvious question: we do not want to limit votes to one per IP address, as that would lock out internet cafes and with them a large portion of the online world.
The disqualified votes are still in the database, so if you think we are doing the wrong thing by considering these ballots "spoiled" please tell us why and we will consider your argument.
Finally, please play nice. Betavote is not advocating one candidate over the other. This project is only interesting if people participate in a fair and honest way.