Goldman Sachs has launched an internal investigation after one of its computers was used in an attempt to rig a public vote on a bank transaction tax on the Robin Hood campaign's Web site.
The campaign, launched by a group of 48 non-profits earlier this week, is calling for a Robin Hood tax to raise hundreds of billions of pounds a year to fight poverty and climate change.
On its Web site, visitors are asked whether they think the plan is a good idea or not. Campaigners were shocked to see a flood of negative reaction to their proposal when 5000 "no" votes were cast in the space of 20 minutes on Thursday afternoon.
An investigation by the Robin Hood site found that the votes emanated from just two computer servers, one of which is registered to Goldman Sachs. The Goldman computer was responsible for around 1700 votes with the rest coming from a personal address.
Goldman is investigating the issue and the Robin Hood site has discounted the suspect votes. Currently, around 25000 people have voted "yes" to the idea with 3000 voting "no".