Are MoveOn.Org’s Petition Numbers Inflated? Nate over at Another Attempt thinks so, and Byron York adds fuel to the curiosity.

From Nate:

Update: According to Alexa for Instapundit and MoveOn, Instapundit is at about the same location, down by about a million page views, which must not be actual page views, given this information. SiteMeter shows the page views of Instapundit at around 4 page views per second (pv/s). Assuming that the traffic percentage difference in Alexa is accurate, MoveOn is getting 50% more page views per second (2m vs 3m = 50%). That means they’d be getting 6 pv/s, not the 37.5 required to have 1,500 petition signatures in 40 seconds.

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Update: During the 10 minute period that I was watching 3,868 signatures were added, or 23,208 per hour. Over the last 4 hours, the average rate was 14,805 per hour. Using the 5pv/s estimate of MoveOn’s site, that would 18,000 page views per hour, which is now over the current rate of petition submissions. That would also require most every MoveOn user being unique assuming they were not able to submit twice, three times, or — a thousand times.

Update: They don’t do e-mail validation, meaning you could sign up repeatedly with false information. They also don’t return any error when you submit the same information over and over again. Whether or not duplicates get added to the petition, I’m not sure. In any event, this petition is meaningless given they don’t verify submitted e-mail addresses, and one person can submit multiple “signatures” using different (real or fake) e-mail addresses.

UPDATE: Wow, GM Roper is in a good mood today!

When I read this, I laughed so hard I almost cried. The folk at MoveOn are petrified, terrified, horrified, abashed, aghast, alarmed, anxious, apprehensive, aroused, blanched, cowed, daunted, discouraged, disheartened, dismayed, distressed, disturbed, faint-hearted, frozen, intimidated, nervous, panic-stricken, perplexed, perturbed, rattled, running scared, scared stiff, shocked, spooked, startled, stunned, suspicious, terror-stricken, trembling, upset, worried and otherwise discombobulated. OMG, this is so much fun.

UPDATE 2: Bill over at INDC has more news! (As does the Politburo Diktat)

MoveOn.org petition bends laws of space and time: collects eight BILLION signatures! The organization subsequently issued a press release declaring George Bush the “most worstest President EVER in the history of the UNIVERSE! Times a kajillion!”