Visitors cast thousands of votes regarding Tata's ouster

On Sept. 26, a day after the Wake County Board of Education fired Superintendent Tony Tata, WRAL News asked web visitors if they supported or opposed the 5-4 vote along party lines.

Through 24 hours, more than 14,000 online votes were cast. Of those, 64% were in agreement with the board; 35% opposed the action and 2% said they were unsure.

After seeing a large swing in the results, WRAL.com staff looked closely at the votes being cast and found evidence of some visitors trying to manipulate the results by circumventing single-vote safeguards in the survey software. Evidence showed attempts to affect both the vote supporting and opposing the board's decision. Because of this manipulation, voting on the question was closed.