Dan Falloon
With less than a week to go in the World Fishing Network’s “Ultimate Fishing Town” contest, Nestor Falls looks to be in a fight to the finish with Port Alberni, B.C.
Nestor Falls trailed by fewer than 200 votes as of yesterday afternoon—right as the B.C. town was hitting its “peak” voting hours, according to Maureen Hanson, who is organizing the vote drive after initially nominating Nestor Falls for the contest.
The battle is a see-saw one, with Nestor Falls tending to take a morning lead only to see Port Alberni respond in the afternoon.
Both communities had just cracked the 95,000 vote mark, and are poised to garner 100,000 apiece before voting closes at 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday (Sept. 28).
However, the winner will not be announced until Oct. 4.
Hanson said her committee has employed a change in strategy heading into the campaign’s final week but was tight-lipped about the shift, citing some “borrowing” of Nestor Falls’ ideas.
“We don’t want to say too much, though, because they’re reading your newspaper online and spreading it all over the Internet,” she noted.
“We don’t want to give too many of our secrets away.
“It’s all over their blogs, direct quotes,” she added.
But Hanson made clear she and her volunteers have laid down a course of action and have begun to follow it.
“We definitely have a plan,” she pledged. “We know that this is doable. We’ve put it in motion.
“You have to start voting smart at this point,” she reasoned. “You just can’t get on there and jam as many votes in.”
Hanson clarified that she and her volunteers are trying to employ certain techniques that keep the website from slowing down, but that others should log on and record a vote every 12 hours at their convenience.
Lastly, Hanson apologized if any residents had seen their e-mail addresses used for voting without approval.
She had put out a call for locals to submit addresses for the volunteers to enter earlier in the contest, but later nixed that offer after being flooded with responses.
The staff had reasoned that they had permission to use the e-mails that were submitted to them.
“We really had no control over who sent us what e-mails,” Hanson explained. “We assumed when we received an e-mail that we had permission to vote it.
“If some of that is happening, we’re very sorry.
“We’re not playing by anything but the rules,” she stressed.
Hanson also conceded some people unrelated to her group may be using their private contact list to vote, over which the committee has no control.
