The Sun's sexiest barmaid vote goes a bit tits up

If you are running a high-profile national vote, then it is always vital to get the little details right. Sadly The Sun doesn't seem to be doing too well with one of their online polls today.

The Sun is running a quest to find Britain's Sexiest barmaid:

BEER we go, lads - it's time for the final of our fantastic Pub Idol contest.

We've whittled down the entries to a final eight hopefuls who believe they deserve the title of Britain's Sexiest Barmaid.

And now it's up to YOU to decide who pulls our prize!

Our contest served up a range of babes so there's a few large ones in there, a couple of pint-sized babes and LOTS of jugs.

The web-page offers a slideshow gallery of the hopeful contestants, featuring mostly grainy mobile phone pictures, and the opportunity to vote for your favourite.

The only problem being that whilst there are eight contestants in the gallery, there are only seven names that you can actually vote for.

And, as it turns out, one of the seven names - Gemma - is in the list twice, so that it is impossible to vote for a couple of the contestants in the running.

I could be unkind and suggest that there is some foul play at work in order to make sure that Johnny (or should that be Joanna?) Foreigner can't steal what The Sun describes as their 'coveted' prize. Notably Italian Laura Cimo and Swede Johanna Eckert are the only entrants to have their nationality specified next to their pictures in the gallery - and both are missing from the voting form.

Just for good measure, there is a huge usability flaw with The Sun's voting system. If you fail to select one of the radio buttons before pressing submit, you get the helpful message:

You didn't select an option!
Please click back on your browser and try again.

I'd love to, I really would - it is just that The Sun opts to remove the browser furniture from the voting pop-up, so there is no back button for me to press.

As I'm sure one of their own fun loving pun-tastic editorials would cry out - it is all a bit BARmy...

Posted by Martin Belam, February 22, 2007
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