Photo: ODT filesForest and Bird says there is nothing to suggest a Russian hacking scandal has hit its Bird of the Year competition, despite hundreds of votes coming from the Federation. "There's certainly been a bit of speculation online about whether or not that's suspicious," Forest and Bird spokesperson Megan Hubscher said. Votes had to be confirmed via an email address to count, and only 193 votes from Russia were included in the final tally. "There could be a reasonable explanation for why we're getting those votes; it could be bird lovers from Russia getting in on the game. The Forest and Bird Twitter account tweeted a map of votes by country, captioned: "That's a decent number of votes from Russia," along with a thinking emoji.

Source: Otago Daily Times November 12, 2019 02:13 UTC