The online world is full of imperfection, a lesson the Nelson Star has learned with our pizza contest.
In our online search for Nelson’s Best Pizza, we have featured delicious pies on the pages of our paper and asked folks to vote for the best. It’s with regret that we have to announce that the contest has been fraught with difficulties and we are unable to declare a winner.
“It is very unfortunate and we feel terrible about the decision, but I don’t think in good conscience that we can name a winner when there are so many variables that need to be looked at,” said publisher Karen Bennett.
There were some oversights in the initial set up of the contest by the Star, and over the course of the contest that lead to staff examining all of the registrations and votes. At the close of the contest, on examination of the voting, a significant amount of non-legitimate votes were registered in the contest.
“We believed that by setting up the contest with registered voting, we would be able to deter over enthusiastic pizza lovers from voting multiple times. Unfortunately, this was not the case,” said Bennett.
The decision to not declare a winner is disappointing for everyone, but there is a silver lining.
“The idea of the contest is really supposed to be a fun, and different way for advertisers to promote their business,” said Bennett. “Over the past few weeks, we are satisfied that we were able to bring our readers some stories on the fantastic pizza offerings this community has available. In that sense, this contest was a great success.”