Brighton Pride’s reputation has been thrust into another controversial sequence of events, as a listings and community website was forced to close its straw poll early after irregularities were noticed in voting patterns.

REALBrighton.com launched the poll on 1 January in a bid to determine public opinion on the proposals to run this year’s Brighton Pride park event, either Fisher Productions with Brighton Pride, or the Wilde Ones Rescue Package. The poll was closed early on 20 January.

The initial result was 54.3% in favour of Fisher Productions against 45.7% for the Wilde Ones. However, REALBrighton.com noticed significant abnormalities in the votes, and without knowing which votes were for which proposal, removed almost half of the votes that they did not feel had been cast by real people.

The final result, after adjustment, was just 11.4% in favour of Fisher Productions and 88.6% for the Wilde Ones Rescue Package.

A statement on REALBrighton.com stated, “These were votes that raised doubts for multiple reasons and were all cast in sustained blocks of 20 or 30 or more at a time (approximately two minutes apart - about enough time for the same person to register a new account in order to vote) rather than organically over the last 20 days. We analysed email addresses and other technical information about votes to help us decide whether we believed the vote to be genuine or not.” 

Pride in Brighton and Hove declined to comment on the result.

Dean Parker of Wilde Ones said, “What’s more shocking than all the fake votes is that only 41 people voted for Pride. Brighton Pride is an event that for years has been widely regarded as the best Pride in the country, if not Europe. It is tragic that in such a short amount of time the Pride organisation has become so disengaged and out of touch with the community, that it has lost the massive public support it used to have.”

The result of the straw poll comes after Brighton Pride released a statement saying that the “financial position has been secured” as a result of a £20,000 loan from Brighton and Hove Council and fundraising efforts which netted just £14,000.

However, sources close to proceedings have called this statement “misleading,” as it fails to take into account that Pride still needs to raise a huge sum of money to put the event on this August. On top of this, plans have yet to be released stating what the park event will actually look like, and which entertainment tents will be there.

A former employee of Brighton Pride called the management of the crisis a “PR disaster.”

Brighton’s GScene magazine and Councilor Paul Elgood, leader of the Liberal Democrats in Brighton, have called for “independent scrutiny” of the tendering process, which culminated in the contract being awarded to London based Fisher Productions.

However, all completed tender documents will remain confidential. Fundraising and communications manager at Brighton Pride said that, “I don’t think it goes against our transparency and openness at all. It’s out of respect to the other companies that tendered. We have been more than open and transparent with regards to the tender process.”

Fisher Productions have hit back at reported allegations of poor credit ratings and negative annual accounts, with chief executive Graham Beswick stating that this was before he and some others invested in the company, and that they have written off this previous activity after a “major client who failed to pay a massive amount of money.”

Brighton Pride maintains that Fisher Productions is the best candidate for the job.

Specific details for the event have yet to be released, though a Pride spokesperson stated that there will be dance tents, cabaret, and most of the aspects of the park people have come to expect, subject to funding.

Pride in Brighton & Hove
www.brightonpride.org
Summer Festival Week 31 July - 8 August 2010
Pride Parade and Park Event 7 August 2010

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