BirthorNot poll results: 74% say give birth, 1.7 million fraudulent votes

by Kathleen Gilbert

December 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The couple that hosted an online poll asking internet users whether or not they should abort their baby has revealed that nearly three out of four voters supported the life of their child – after a huge number of fraudulent votes were removed.

Pete and Alisha Arnold of BirthorNot.com posted the official results December 3, four days after closing the poll. At the closing of the poll the results had appeared to lean heavily in favor of aborting the unborn child dubbed “Baby Wiggles.” But the couple promised to send the results off to “a third party report wizard” to remove any fraud.

Out of over 278,000 genuine votes, 73.8 percent voted for the couple to give birth, while 26.2 percent voted to abort the baby. The numbers changed vastly from the original tally, favoring abortion 77.63 percent to 22.37 percent, after culling the fraudulent votes. 243,588 fake votes were for birth, while 1.48 million were for abortion.

The online poll was widely deemed to be a hoax after Mr. Arnold revealed that he was pro-life; however, Mrs. Arnold later revealed that she is pro-abortion, and contradicted her husband’s claims that they had never really considered an abortion. Alisha said she considered aborting the child, but has since grown closer to the baby and would likely choose life.

Mrs. Arnold wrote in a Dec. 3 post that she found the number of fake votes in favor of aborting the baby “astounding.” “I have no idea why people would go to the lengths that they did to submit fraudulent votes towards abortion,” she said. “But this all leads back to the reason for voting and how many people don’t take it seriously.”

She finished by reiterating that “it is always the woman’s right to choose and so it’s her responsibility to make the right decision for herself and her potential child.”

In his post the same day, Pete Arnold said he believed the labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice” obscured the discussion on abortion. “Instead of talking about a vague word that has little to do with the actual topic, we need to be intellectually honest and talk openly,” he opined.

“Instead of talking about abortion, the labels are a warm and fuzzy way of speaking without actually discussing why removing a life from existence should be legal.”