The Department of Islamic Development (JAKIM) recently launched an online poll to gauge public opinion about the controversy over the the caning of women for adultery. It’s an issue that has seen The Star, Malaysia’s largest English daily, having its license threatened because they dared print an article discussing it, and caused Marina Mahathir’s regular column to be censored over it.
The poll is reproduced below:
Wajarkah lelaki & wanita muslim yang melakukan kesalahan minum arak & persetubuhan luar nikah dikenakan hukuman sebatan mengikut peruntukan undang-undang jenayah syariah.
(Is it appropriate for Muslim men and women who are guilty of drinking alcohol or extra-marital sex to be caned as per Syariah law)?
The results were as you might imagine, seeing as netizens tend to be urban and more highly educated. That and the link to the poll was being widely circulated on Facebook and Twitter. Unscientific Malaysia has a thread with varied discussion on the poll. The votes for Tak Wajar (Not appropriate) were initially ahead, e.g. 98 Wajar and 150 Tak Wajar . But suspiciously, the votes for Wajar (Appropriate) burst ahead a few hours later.
This trend continued through the day: the votes for Tak Wajar would slowly climb up, but when you checked back a while later Wajar would be solidly ahead.
So I wrote a quick script to pull the poll results every few minutes, and it seems like JAKIM isn’t above a little ballot-stuffing.
This was the poll at 11:26, when I started out. 400 votes for Wajar and 256 for Tak Wajar:
11:26:
20 minutes later at 11:42, Tak Wajar had climbed to 260:
11:42:
3 minutes later at 11:45, Wajar shoots up to 532 instantly (conveniently, exactly double the Tak Wajar votes).:
11:45:
Word started getting out on Facebook and Twitter, and the Tak Wajars rallied. The scoreboard at hourly intervals from 12:00-17:00:
12:00:
13:00:
14:00:
15:00:
16:00:
17:00:
But then a miracle happens!
At 17:12 the Tak Wajars stood comfortably at 1544 vs 992 for the Wajars. But then Wajar gets another mysterious boost of 500 votes at 17:14:
17:12:
17:14:
Of course this still leaves the Wajars behind, so more miracles happen. The standings at 17:30 are 1493 for the Wajars, but at 17:32 they get another 200 votes, and another 100 or so a few minutes later:
17:30:
17:32:
17:34:
But things still seem pretty close! No matter, as we can see by the snapshots at 17:42 and 17:44. 500 more phantom votes for JAKIM:
17:42:
17:44:
The fun doesn’t stop with another 500 votes falling from heaven at 17:52 to 17:54, bringing the tally to 2818 Wajar vs 1930 Tak Wajar :
17:52:
17:54:
The standings at the time of writing are 2824 for Wajar and 2000 for Tak Wajar. Anyone want to take out a bet on the poll winner?
Online polls by political parties are not new. Neither is it new for online poll results to be ignored – When MCA President Ong Tee Keat put up an online poll asking if MCA should pull out of BN, the poll was taken down after 78% of respondents voted a resounding yes. When the Government reverted the teaching of Maths and Science from English to Malay, a poll on Dr. Mahathir’s blog had more than 70% of people disagreeing with the decision.
Neither do I claim that online polls are reliable – as even TIME magazine famously found out.
But for a Government agency to blatantly cheat on their own polls? With the URL www.islam.gov.my no less? For shame! At best, this is mischief – at worst, sinister.
After all, this is not a “Do you like this site” poll where one can at least give the excuse that one does not want to look bad. It is a poll on whether or not to implement the caning of females, something even most of Malaysia’s Muslim peers don’t do. Isn’t it contradictory for our self-proclaimed moral police to cheat when seeking public opinion? And why put up a poll when you are not serious about getting responses?
It seems that JAKIM is simply itching to start caning and policing private behaviour, and there’s nothing they won’t do to justify it.
[Update]
Just to clarify why it’s likely that the poll was rigged, and not some diehard clearing their cookies and refreshing the browser, which probably happened on both sides. The jumps are all in 100, 200, 500 increments (and one instance early on where it was exactly double). The odds are that if someone outside JAKIM were putting in fake votes, the increments wouldn’t be so neat.
[Update 2]
Yoon Kit provided a graph that illustrates the trend, Wajar votes are the cyan line:
Wilz took the raw data and makes a prediction of what the votes should have been like.
[Update 3] As I realize it will never possible to prove with 100% certainty that it was manipulated (although I believe it was), I’ve updated the title to reflect this. Malaysiakini’s Chinese edition has picked up the story.
[Update 4] Malaysiakini’s English edition has picked up the story too, with denials from JAKIM.
Also see: Religion, Morality and How it Divides: The Tamarin Study.
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Tags: caning, caning controversy, cheating, government, islam, JAKIM, Malaysia, morality, poll, Religion, syariah, unmalaysia, unscientific malaysia
Might as well don’t put the poll from the very beginning, pretty useless!
wah BEST! baik punya programmer!
thanks!
Wow, another good achievement again! Malaysia Boleh! :D
Brilliant work Tim.
Well done, Tim!
Expose the liars!
too cool
They’ll do anything to prove they are right and that’s what the rakyat wants
the programmer just do tier work
Thanks for this Tim, have posted it on the PopIN networks. Great work.
thanks tim. i was following it every now and then and saw how the votes for “wajar” can really spike up in a matter of minutes, especially when there’s a steady increase of the “tidak wajar” votes. i always knew that the tidak wajar folks would be outnumbered, partly because all these facebook accounts eg that call for SIS to be banned and their ilk, have like thousands of members in such a short period. but it’s important to make a stand regardless of the outcome!
I think the above poll should be renamed as WAJAR UNTUK JAKIM MENIPU SEMUA ORANG
LOL, even the poll question is slanted. Here’s a translation (with some help from web translator):
OPINION POLL
Is it proper for Muslim men and woman who commit the offences of drinking liquor and illicit sexual intercourse to receive the whipping sentence, in accordance to syariah criminal law ?
A) It is proper
B) It is NOT proper
Vote | Results
Bottomline: don’t mess with the programmer!
Waffle please don’t get yourself imprisoned :(
Online polls are usually meaningless.
The doubt ratio is too high and sampling errors are hedious.
It’s funny how you and so many other Malaysians think highly of these polls, rather, as in SNS sites, regards online polls as “for fun”.So I think putting Jakim in the spotlight for “hiding the truth” here is hilarioius.
Thanks for the comments.
@Tahan Ching: The point is not the validity or the weight of the poll (as I stated), but that JAKIM cheated on their own poll.
i think those people from jakim are stupid
those muslim people commit adultery and drinking liquor SHOULD be punish according to the Islamic law
no need to do such stupid pool or whatever
Though not at the scale of Wajar, reading the UM FB thread, there were also those in Tak Wajar camp who revoted by deleting cookies There’s no evidence WHO actually rigged the votes. You could even have a liberal hacker(s) interested in fanning flames or just for lulz. Maybe it was the click of god’s awesum finger.If Jakim lost, it could still … See moresay the numbers is a sign of society’s decadence & more power/$$ is needed to correct things. The main point is that a religious institution is opening itself to public opinion. The other point though is tt this is all for show as realistically speaking, the catching and caning of all the ‘muslim’ drinkers & fornicators is a task only god can do.
poll atau tidak..
-sepatutnya jakim perlu kaji untuk membuat poll seperti ini, sebelum sesuatu terjadi
-tapi undang2 kerajaan islam sepatutnya menghukum sebatan kepada mereka yang melakukan kesalahan tersebut
biarlah islam dengan undang2nya.. jangan ungkitkan perkara2 ini kerana mungkin akan berlakunya perselisihan faham antara kaum..
hahahahha
too funny!
Hey Tim,
MUSLIMS who drank alcohol and conducted adultery SHOULD and MUST be canned. Full stop. Having a poll is a very, very stupid idea. There shouldn’t be any POLL at all, and the non-
Muslim NGO’s and YOU who are not a muslim should stop arguing on it.
[Comment edited]
Tim: “Me”, we’re focusing on JAKIM’s handling of the poll here.
I agree with Hyde.
love this. thanks
[...] on Online Poll Results March 10, 2010 Posted by Wilz in Politics. trackback Tim wrote a post on his blog in which he claims to have found proof of JAKIM doctoring their own website’s poll on caning [...]
Made a more thorough analysis of Tim’s data in the above trackback. Same conclusions.
Hi ME,
do you agree if Islam teach cheating? we are talking about this issue here. If you think Tim shouldn’t post his oppinion, then what makes you think you can? This is call HYPOCRITE! Hope you are not extremis.
Hi ME,
one more thing, if you think Tim is stupid on arguing this issue. Then, I think you are EXTREMELY STUPID!
Hey ME,
Tim was just showing that the poll is useless. Which it is. What is wrong with informing the public?
[Content edited]
Shame on you.
Tim: Let’s all stay civil.
if Allah said cheat is sin
if JAKIM cheat poll
if JAKIM == Muslim
// shame on JAKIM then
if you are muslim
// you should ban JAKIM
if you don’t ban JAKIM
// you bring shame to Allah too
end if
end if
end if
end if
end if
nice logic right :)
Amazing. And these people think they have cornered the market on ethics and morals??? Great post. Will come back to visit often.
Great job, Tim.
I guess Malaysia has only one way to go and the directional sign says “Drain”.
When I say “Malaysia” I mean the country meant to be shared by all its races.
People who disagree with your post because they’re passionate about their faith should really understand that your point is that JAKIM cheated and for that to happen is a big irony and hypocrisy.
However, seeing as all establishments comprise and are led by human beings, prone to flaws and inconsistency, I guess we shouldn’t be too ready to judge them harshly.
I’m sure we ourselves are hypocrites from time to time. Especially if we don’t do anything about standing for a fairer and more moderate and transparent Malaysia, but complain about the situation AND then criticise people who do their part when their actions cause us a little inconvenience (e.g traffic jams at peaceful rallies).
Anyway, good job.
what they did just simply easy by using SQL:
UPDATE POLL_MASTER SET POLL_YES=POLL_YES+500 WHERE POLL_EVENT=’CANNNING’;
What they done most wrong is just too obvious, they should increase it by an odd number like 512, or 247, but they do it update in 500, 200, 100, too obvious.
hahahaha~~cheat also is 失败！
Even in a poll they are trying to cheat, do you think they will be fair and square in their jugdement?
Re: Me
GENTLEMEN.
Do not feed the troll.
On point:
Allowing special treatment due to one’s religion is, if you think about it, really weird.
I am an Orthodox Peresibetyrian. As one of my religious tenets, I must slaughter and bathe in the blood of a small child every year on Sathenesday. Do I deserve special treatment due to my personal faiths?
I don’t even have to make up religions to get a valid example.
Sikhs must carry the dagger (kirpan) at all times. It is a mandatory tenet of their faith, alongside uncut hair. How many sikhs do you know, and how many of them carry daggers?
As the world changes religions often update themselves to stay acceptable. Go back to when sikhs really wore daggers and ask if a ceremonial symbol such as a dagger-shaped necklace makes the cut.
We claim to follow syariah law yet we don’t cut the hands off thieves.
The Book of Levicitus forbids shellfish and the wearing of mixed fabrics. How many Christians do you know decline a prawn fritter while wearing 100% cotton clothing?
Religions _frequently_ get rid of the more socially unacceptable aspects of their faith.
The only lesson to take from this is that we’re behind the curve.
The answer is to treat all people of all faiths equally: With no special treatment whatsoever.
Separate but equal is never equal.
[Last sentence edited]
Tim: Thanks for all the comments. Sorry but I’ll be disabling comments on this thread now, feel free to comment on twitter :)