Please Read! A Vital Koufax Auto Beckett Contest Update: A Question of Morals.

So this contest took a turn for the unpredictable and the way past gray area. I went to bed Saturday night ahead by a handful of votes, and awoke to a deficit of 15ish or so. I left to play kickball/football with some friends, and returned home to find that both of my competitors had gained hundreds of votes within a few hours. As I'm writing this, the guy who would go to Bieber concerts for life has gained about 530ish votes in just one day, and the other guy about 600 votes.

And Bieber guy is actually paying for those votes. (click above to embiggen)

To top it off, Beckett won't be doing anything about it. Below is a Twitter conversation I had with Chris Olds, editor of Beckett Baseball Magazine, about the situation.

Yeah, it's only a Koufax auto, right? Who cares if a guy cheats to get it; let fate take me on its mighty wings to victory! Which actually reminds me of a line in one of my favorite songs: "I would wait here for fate, but it's conveniently late." Anyways, follow the "he's paying for them" link and you'll find he's offering people money to vote for him, and received at least 50 votes from one person. The profile name on the above linked site matches his Twitter handle, so I know it's him. And using simple logic, how else would a guy with under 30 followers and no blog gain such a substantial amount of votes in just one day?

I have no idea how the other Greg gained his hundreds of votes, but I have no proof of vote-buying or some sort of automated program that votes, so I say kudos (I guess, he did gain like a hundred plus votes right before midnight) to him for not doing what the other dude did. That's a clown tactic, bro.

The crazy thing is that there's actually a loophole to vote more than once per day. It's in that gray area, and I feel unsure of whether it's morally wrong, but with one guy buying votes, my moral compass has spun a bit, as you might imagine. Basically, in either Firefox or Internet Explorer, use the Private Browsing tool and type in Beckett in the url area, find the Koufax Contest post, and vote time and time again using this method for each vote. I'm literally hundreds back after Sunday's shenanigans, so I can use all of the Card Blogging help that friendship - and not money - can buy.

I won't begrudge anyone who can find some time to do so, because I certainly won't lay down to a blatant cheater.

I left this comment in the original contest post on Beckett; I doubt whomever moderates such things will ultimately allow it.

I’d like to thank Chris Olds and Beckett for the opportunity and wish my two fellow contestants good luck!

And Ryan, I think you have every right to be in the contest. But I think the fact that you’re legitimately buying votes is in really poor taste.

Just my two cents.

I truly stand behind each and every word. I have no problem with the "Bieber Guy" being a finalist, but vote-buying is deplorable. If I lose, well, it would of course suck, but I could live with losing to someone who was able to drum up support through friends, family, co-workers, etc. Losing to someone that bought their vote and thus bought the prize? Shadiness.

My question for everybody is simple: do you find it morally wrong for anyone voting for me to vote as many times per day as possible while taking advantage of that loophole I described, especially considering one guy is actually buying votes?

I personally feel it is morally wrong - or at the least too gray of an area that I would prefer to avoid completely - but at the risk of falling thousands of votes behind, I don't see there being much of an alternative.

I very much would like to hear everyone's answer, whether that answer is pro or con or anywhere in between.