The Spammer’s Vote - Update
October 24th, 2008
We continue to track the spammers’ presidential candidate preference in this election. Since our last post, we have seen dramatic swings with Obama’s lead being as low as 1% to as high as 99%. In the past week, the spam containing Obama’s name has seen a significant increase and has maintained a lead margin approaching 70%.

Obama's Spam Election Lead Widens
The spammers preference for Obama mimics the lead he currently has in national election polls albeit at a much higher margin. Some of the subjects of these emails include:
“Obama shows McCain what a real debate should be”
“Obama’s private video”
“Obama’s Biggest Mistake Yet”
“McCain belittles Obama’s abilities”
While the spam messages are enticing recipients to purchase a wide variety of items, the most prevalent are prescription drugs promotions (first step in funding a National Healthcare Plan?)
We will continue to monitor mail and web traffic observed by TrustedSource for election-related scams and provide updates as the data gets interesting, and as the election day gets closer with less than two weeks to go.
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