Scenario: There was an online competition to win a prize. The competitors are technology start-up companies and the prize is worth around 5,000 USD.
There was a public, online vote to decide the overall winner. Competitors turned to social media to get the word out about their competition entry.
Prior to the public vote an expert panel decided which of the companies involved would make the short list. Those that made it to the short list are included in the public vote.
An interactive plot of 48 hours of the voting data collected between companies A, B, and C is available here: http://doge.bike/plot/. The source data is available here: http://doge.bike/plot/question.csv. At the beginning of this 48 hour period voting had been open for 8 days and everyone started at 0 votes.
Can you see any unusual/unexpected trends in the data? We were surprised to see the sharp spikes in the B and C lines. We thought it was odd that such large spikes would happen and then immediately stop, rather than tailing off slowly.