Azul, I'm afraid the Chancery is currently investigating 5 ballots that were improperly submitted on the Database.
One of the five voters wrote me this morning detailing, with clear pictures, how his receipt showed a straight PRESENT ballot despite the confirmation modal on the voting page showing a fully compiled ballot.
I investigated the case through the logging and certification functions of the Database and found that the pattern in all five cases is the following:
- The legitimate (human) voter accesses the ballot;
- Some external (likely non human) actor, with an IP belonging to a Google block and a different UserAgent from the legitimate voter, immediately accesses and submits the ballot;
- The legitimate voter attempts to submit the ballot, but as a ballot in their name was already cast, they get redirected to the receipt for the external actor's vote instead.
In all five instances, the ballots were recorded as straight PRESENT choices. (EDIT: Additionally, it always takes exactly 6 seconds for the ballot to be submitted once accessed by the external actor.)
In three out of five instances, the external actor UserAgent, interestingly, was the same across all instances, and never appeared on any other ballots, EXCEPT for S:r Tzaracomprada's improperly submitted ballot (which also was recorded as straight PRESENT, and which EDIT: took 7 seconds to be submitted), and one single legitimate voter, which I already verified looks normal.
In the other two instances, the UserAgent was only different by a digit and shared by 6 other legitimate voters.
I am honestly at a loss; my theory is some sort of AI agent or bot by Google messing with the regular casting of votes. Either way, this isn't a Database problem, which paradoxically makes it more difficult for me to fix it.
The Chancery will immediately contact all affected voters to explain the situation and offer to recast or correct their ballots.
The Chancery will also explore ways to mitigate the issue going forward, e.g. blocking the Google IP range from which the external actors submitted the ballots, or adding a Captcha of some sort to the Database ballot, which might be challenging with an election actively underway.
Hm... concerning.
I wonder . . . it sort of sounds like a browser prefetch or AI feature gone wrong.
Do we know if the humans were all using the same web browser software (say, Chrome 151)?
Quote from: Istefan Perþonest on August 17, 2026, 07:19:32 AMI wonder . . . it sort of sounds like a browser prefetch or AI feature gone wrong.
Do we know if the humans were all using the same web browser software (say, Chrome 151)?
Four were using Chrome 150/151 on Windows, Mac OS or Android; one was using Safari 26.6 on iOS.
Thank you for being transparent concerning your findings. I confess to being confused as to where the current track is headed. I can't tell whether this was AI bot interference, human error, or a combination of both.
Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on August 17, 2026, 09:04:05 AMThank you for being transparent concerning your findings. I confess to being confused as to where the current track is headed. I can't tell whether this was AI bot interference, human error, or a combination of both.
In these 5 instances, I am 100% convinced it's AI bot interference; in your instance, 99%. Either way, I have done all I can to rectify both issues and provide the Government with all data I hold on the matter; I'm happy to report that 4 of 6 (edit: now 5) affected voters have recast their ballots, with a fifth having already reached out to me saying they would also re-vote soon.
Quote from: Sir Lüc on August 18, 2026, 06:36:19 AMQuote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on August 17, 2026, 09:04:05 AMThank you for being transparent concerning your findings. I confess to being confused as to where the current track is headed. I can't tell whether this was AI bot interference, human error, or a combination of both.
In these 5 instances, I am 100% convinced it's AI bot interference; in your instance, 99%. Either way, I have done all I can to rectify both issues and provide the Government with all data I hold on the matter; I'm happy to report that 4 of 6 affected voters have recast their ballots, with a fifth having already reached out to me saying they would also re-vote soon.
You seem a lot more certain that this is the same error today, which is good!