UPDATED: Which charity do you want Twestival Houston 2009 to benefit?

Why vote for Neighborhood Centers (NCI)? We've been helping Houston residents for 103 years. http://neighborhoodcenters.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/what-is-neighborhood-centers-anyways/

Pink Door's mission statement is based around the concept that single, divorced, or widowed women cancer survivors can still follow their dreams down the the lighted path to a successful career after cancer. Our exclusive recruiting events, educational classes, and the "Women In Pink" Scholarship Fund are all designed to help build careers after cancer

"Extra Life is a 24-hour charity gaming marathon that aims to raise money to fight pediatric cancer. Extra Life is working in partnership with Texas Children’s Hospital and all funds are earmarked for the Texas Children’s Cancer Center. It’s really easy to help out. All you have to do is sign up at the Texas Children’s Hospital donation site for Extra Life. The site makes it easy to send out requests for donations to people you know. Those people donate and you get credit for obtaining the donation. On October 17th at 8am (in your local timezone) you just play games for 24 hours. It’s that simple." From the Extra Life website. http://extralife.sarcasticgamer.com/

Wow! Our community really helped in pulling Extra Life through!

i think extra life *may* have won. on the other hand, pink door is only 4300 behind, they are catching up fast!

hmm ... methinks there may be a few hackers among those Extra Life gamers. if so, not cool, guys. this is supposed to be a *community* thing. please play fair. & play nice. thanks.

no matter who wins, it still goes to a good cause right? no need for false accusations just because we have an extremly large community.

I don't think it's fair to assume that Extra Life only won because of cheating. The Sarcastic Gamer community alone is quite large, and the rest of the Gamer Cast Network probably contributed quite a lot as well.

I would be dissapointed if a gaming corporation won this. Bottom line, I seriously doubt the same people who voted for Extralife will be attending the festival. If they voted and didn't just hack the system. Pink Door is the true winner. I hope they see this. I don't like cheaters.

@Purplepearly: Most of the Gamercast Network does the Extra Life Marathon, myself included. It's not the site that'd get the money, it's the charity, which helps with pediatric cancer, so as euanc said, whoever wins, it goes to a good cause. And I've has pediatric cancer effect my family, so I voted Extra Life for that reason too

@Purplepearly A gaming corporation? What are you talking about? We are all just normal gamers, working together to fight cancer, are you really against people raising money for children with cancer? I don't like false accusations. The Gamercast Network is at least 8000 strong, and everyone cares, especially when our own are personally affected by such a traumatic experience, so we come together as a community. Pink Door wouldnt be a winner, and neither is Extra Life, the real winners are those who benefit from from the money that is raised, and i seriously hope that you come to realise it. Also, the founder of Extra Life comes from Houston Texas, so yeah.

@Purplepearly Yes, we are indeed depraved hackers hell bent on cheating the system. Only someone of such diabolic intent would come to rig a poll so that it benefits children with cancer. I think I speak for all members of our evil gaming corporation when I say that we have come here to ruin your festival (and eat your babies). /sarcasm

Although it is great that the gamers would like to help kids with cancer the other organizations have similarly noble and worthwhile causes. Many people took time and effort to encourage the many (though not 7,000+) members of their community to vote for their cause. Cheating the system is a disrespect to Twestival Houston and all of the causes and their supporters.

All the causes listed are worthy. If Extra Life wins, it's because the community that is behind it rallied to bring in the votes. All proceeds go towards curing pediatric cancer. I am a staff member and stand behind the Gamercast Network (not a corporation, but a community of people who play video games). We have quite a lot of folks who have twittered, posted in forums and speak daily online to bring these votes in. And FYI, the founder of our site (Sarcasticgamer.com) lives in Houston as do many of our community members. I'm sure they will be in attendance at the festival should Extra Life win or not, as it is a very noble event.

I want to apologize to Grace and the other charities. Apparently we did have an "ardent" community member jump the votes. Although their intent was good, we do not condone, nor support cheating any system and will agree to being pulled from the competition should you not be able to decipher the authentic votes from the bogus ones. We do hope the festival is a success.

I hope Extra Life is letting the community vote that is really big lead! Good Luck Neighborhood Centers I have been to two locations and had great experience at both! My boys always have a great time and your volunteers are sensational!

I think that idea behind Extra life is awesome and i've never heard of the organization. My bro's a gamer and i'm gonna see if he wants to get involved with this...but the thing about the contest is that its for the Houston Community. I don't think those 7000+ are all from Houston. I mean if it were that way why don't they have as many votes on the other polling page that was set up yesterday. They only have over 100 on that one.

I feel like Extra Life and others have missed the concept of Twestival Local. While what they do for Texas Children's is a respectable thing, Twestival Local is about the Houston community supporting a charity that helps the Houston community. As a Twestival volunteer, I find these poll results highly insulting to the point of this community effort.

Hey guys - I got the news from the Extra Life team themselves: an ardent fan DID mess with the poll. They gave me the heads up first, which is why I posted the note. I think what Extra Life does and stands for is GREAT; but, unfortunately, the actions of one guy spoil it for the rest of the group. I have tremendous respect and admiration for Ry for being honest and transparent about the entire situation. His efforts to rectify the situation inspire me to support Extra Life...however, we're going to have to remove Extra Life from the running this time, since we can't easily weed out the valid votes from the invalid ones. I hope we can still find another way to help Extra Life raise awareness and funds to help you help kids with cancer. I'm open to ideas... Thanks for all the feedback, Grace

Grace- thanks so much for the update! I am so glad to hear they are an organization of integrity. My child has spent numerous months at Texas Childrens hospital and my child would not be alive today without them. However, someone from ExtraLife did cheat and therefore one of the other organizations should be honored instead.

Please show the real votes - if there was some cheating involved, it should not be reflected in the vote. If one is not inclined to read comments, one is not aware of how this got rigged - fix it or the credibility of the whole enterprise suffers.