Hi I have a small problem with my voting poll script. it is public, so users don't have to register. The problem is, how would be the best wa to track the votes? If it is cookie based, the user can delete the cookie and vote again. If it is IP based, it works ok, but many times the votes come from "closed" enviromet, like schools or student campus, where different userts have the same IP. An idea how other public voting polls work?
What you've presented is a common dillema. I've worked for some large local media outlets, and the only effective way we could poll results fairly was to take the cookie approach. Though like you said, it can be cheated, and in my situation we had to program additional functionality that looked for fraudulent voting activity (a good indicator is to look for a disproportionate amount of votes from a single IP, or look for a disproportionate amount of votes to page views).