Readers Speak: Down with Geraldo

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Val Castronovo, Ellin Martens, Desa Philadelphia, Julie Rawe, Chris Taylor and Josh Tyrangiel

The online poll is a curious beast. Time.com gathered votes for 21 months on the person, event, fraud and worst idea of the century. But before the tallying could even begin, several hurdles had to be cleared: Jesus and Muhammad were ousted for chronological accuracy. Then the "bots," computer robots designed to stuff the e-box, had to be repelled. Having fought off these intruders, time.com found that voters had some strange preferences:

PERSON OF THE CENTURY

1. Elvis Presley 13.79% 624,557 2. Yitzhak Rabin 13.23% 599,271 3. Adolf Hitler 11.41% 516,697

EVENT OF THE CENTURY

1. Elvis' teaching teens to rock 'n' roll 13.46% 52,583 2. Moon landing 11.34% 44,281 3. Gandhi's civil disobedience 10.81% 42,231

PHONY OR FRAUD OF THE CENTURY

1. J.R. Bob Dobbs* 20.46% 43,284 2. Geraldo Rivera 15.88% 33,600 3. O.J. Simpson 11.06% 23,390

WORST IDEA OF THE CENTURY

1. Prohibition 8.16% 2. Programming decision that led to the Y2K bug 8.06% 2. Geraldo's opening Al Capone's vault 8.00%

Total "Worst" votes: 227,296. *J.R. is so [phony, he doesn't even exist]