Context
No one loves Jordan “JT” Torres and his beautiful pecs more than we do. EpicPecs followers know how often we have said, “When it comes to pecs, there is Jordan Torres, and there is everybody else.” (Sorry Chris Elkins!)
Consequently, we agonized over our decision to disregard most of the votes for JT that our system recorded in the Final Round of voting. Ultimately, we realized that we had to do it.
We still love JT—a lot! We are not accusing JT personally or anyone on his team of violating any contest rules.
Also, we are unable to determine definitively which votes are legitimate and which are not. The best we can do to ensure fairness is to watch for patterns that suggest certain blocks of votes are unlikely to be legitimate.
Finally, we are unable to determine with any certainty who is responsible for the votes we suspect are not legitimate.
Observations
That said, here is what we observed.
The top two contenders in the Final Round were Jordan Torres and Chris Elkins. The number of votes recorded for each of them during the seven days of voting was…
| JT | Chris | |
|---|---|---|
| 16 Dec | 914 | 52 |
| 17 Dec | 30 | 8 |
| 18 Dec | 6 | 63 |
| 19 Dec | 7 | 101 |
| 20 Dec | 4 | 123 |
| 21 Dec | 7 | 73 |
| 22 Dec | 6 | 62 |
| Totals | 974 | 482 |
The voting software we use records detailed information about each vote. Specifically, we looked at three things, in consultation with our technical advisors.
- Number of votes recorded for each candidate by minute across 10,080 minutes of voting
- Timing of votes recorded in relation to timing of candidate social media posts asking fans to vote
- Geographic distribution of voter IP addresses
Based upon these factors, we have been advised that there is a high likelihood that a large majority of the votes recorded for JT on 16 December were the result of an organized campaign of technology-assisted voting.
This chart illustrates one (but not the only one) of our concerns: the the high velocity of incoming votes recorded for JT during the first day of voting—frequently 2-7 votes per minute for sustained periods.
Corrective Action Taken
Based upon our belief that a large majority of the votes recorded for JT on 16 December probably were not legitimate under the contest rules, we made the decision
- to subtract all of the votes recorded for JT on that date, and
- to add back the number of votes recorded for JT on his best of the other six days of voting.
Here is that calculation:
| Total votes recorded for JT in all of Round III | 974 |
| Less votes recorded for JT on Day 1 of Round III (16 Dec) | 914 |
| Difference | 60 |
| Plus votes recorded for JT on his best day of Days 2-7 | 30 |
| Official vote total for JT in Round III | 90 |
Obviously, this is not a perfect science. This is what seems fair to us.
Therefore, the Official Results of the Second Annual EpicPecs Award – Best Chest of 2023 are:
Winner: Chris Elkins – 54.16%
Runner-Up: Logan Foote – 10.56%
Third Place: Jordan Torres – 10.11%
Isaiah Blackmon – 7.08%
Sam Hall – 4.72%
Jess Messino – 3.93%
Anthony Tonso – 3.48%
Omar Albatal – 3.15%
Sepanta Arya – 2.81%
We apologize to JT and any of his fans who may have cast the 31st, 32nd, 33rd, etc. legitimate votes for him on 16 December.