UFCW of PA Wine and Spirits Council: Privateers Hack Post-Gazette Poll

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., March 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- A review of a recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette online poll on Gov. Corbett's scheme to dismantle the PLCB showed that hackers who favor privatization had skewed the results.

"We demonstrated that the poll was being rigged. The privateers are so desperate that they are now hacking media polls.  They're losing on the merits and now have to cheat," Wendell W. Young, IV, the President of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 and Chair of the UFCW of PA Wine and Spirits Council, said today.

Young said that last week Local 1776 saw evidence that multiple votes were registering rapidly on the Post-Gazette poll even long after the newspaper had removed the link to the poll from its website.

Votes were still being counted in support of privatization.

"Those weren't people voting.  It was a computer or computers rigged to vote time and time again.  I don't know who was created these fake votes, although I have my suspicions," Young said.

IT professionals confirmed that that votes were being generated automatically and repeatedly on the link, and showed how it was being done.  The union notified the Post-Gazette editors, who informed them that the results of the poll would not be published.

"The forces behind privatization know that they don't have the facts or the people of Pennsylvania on their side," Young said.  "If they did, they would not have to resort to faking and rigging news media polls.

"Instead of trying to fool the public, they should recognize the common sense of steps to modernize the Wine & Spirits stores so that they create even more revenue for all taxpayers."

Young said these steps include more Wine & Spirits stores in supermarkets, more stores open and additional hours on Sunday, and inventory and personnel policy changes that in total could create an additional $100 million a year for the state treasury, in addition to the $530 million that the stores created last year in profits and taxes to benefit all Pennsylvanians. 

SOURCE UFCW PA Wine and Spirits Council