Sexiest politicians survey rigged

Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Norrie Montgomery

One in 10 votes in a poll on the sexiest politicians came from official government internet addresses - and most "voters" returned multiple times.

The poll was run on Wednesday on Newswire, the website of Whitireia polytechnic's journalism class, and gained more than 1000 votes.

The poll was set up so that the class could see the origin of the votes. Results were announced yesterday.

Labour MP Jacinda Ardern topped the poll with 270 votes, followed by National MP Nikki Kaye with 243.

But the website said many votes came from the same computers. "Logs show they [the politicians] or staff/friends/supporters appear to have voted in bulk over short periods of time.

"More than 10 per cent [105] were from government IP addresses, mostly voting multiple times."

They revealed that of Ardern's 270 votes, only 87 were "genuine", coming from different internet addresses.

"Nikki Kaye was second with 54 'genuine' votes. Paula Bennett had the highest number of repeat votes in our tongue-in-cheek poll, with one Orcon user voting for her 98 times in a row."

Although Jacinda Ardern and Nikki Kaye would not speak to the students about the poll, Bennett saw the funny side: "Ninety-eight times? That's fantastic! What's his number?"

Prime Minister John Key scored 37 votes overall, with 11 non-bulk votes.

Labour's Phil Goff got 11 votes - two from Parliament.

- Staff reporter