DENVER -- A DenverChannel poll posted onlin over the past three weeks shows Ron Paul with a huge lead over Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. The only problem is, it is not a scientific poll.

On Monday, after it had been online for two weeks, the poll showed Sen. Clinton had a large lead over Sen. Barack Obama on the Democratic side, garnering 16 percent of the vote, to Obama's 9 percent.

The survey at that time also showed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani leading all likely Republican contenders on Monday. Giuliani had 17 percent, Sen. John McCain had 10 percent of the vote and Sen. Fred Thompson was not far behind, with 9 percent, as of mid-morning Monday.

In the first two weeks it was online, the poll showed Ron Paul garnered only 3 percent of the vote. That percentage doubled Monday morning, after the online publication of this story about the results. By Wednesday, Ron Paul had gotten 41 percent of the vote, with Clinton's share shrinking to 11 percent and Obama's share shrinking to 6 percent.

Ron Paul supporters were posting the link to the DenverChannel poll on partisan blogs and Web sites, urging supporters to vote.

Last month, CNBC experienced a similar flood of Ron Paul votes in its online poll and pulled it, posting an explanation of why it was pulled. As Managing Editor Allen Wastler explained, "These Internet polls are admittedly unscientific and subject to hacking. In the end, they are really just a way to engage the reader and take a quick temperature reading of your audience. Nothing more and nothing less. The cyber equivalent of asking the room for a show of hands on a certain question."

The disclaimer on TheDenverChannel poll states, "Please keep in mind that our polls are for entertainment and are not conducted in a scientific fashion. We make no guarantees about the accuracy of the results other than that they reflect the choices of the users who participated."

Some participants who contacted TheDenverChannel about the results pointed out that the poll can easily be manipulated and one person can cast multiple votes by logging on from different IP addresses or computers. The poll was not showing up correctly in Firefox browsers, which account for 12 percent of the Web traffic to TheDenverChannel. The poll was showing up correctly in Internet Explorer, which accounts for more than 83 percent of the browsers accessing the Web site.

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Meanwhile, a national scientific poll has Clinton with a slim lead over both Giuliani and Sen. John McCain. The national Gallup poll of presidential candidates showed Clinton has larger leads over former Sen. Fred Thompson and former Gov. Mitt Romney.

Barack Obama also enjoys a wide margin over Thompson and Romney, but more or less ties with Giuliani and McCain.

The poll of 897 registered voters nationwide was conducted Nov. 11-14.

Clinton's standing against Giuliani, McCain, and Romney has remained about the same since similar polls during the summer. She now pulls greater numbers against Thompson.

Obama has not improved his standing against any of the leading Republican candidates compared to poll results from the summer, Gallup said.

Leaving aside undecided voters, the Clinton match-ups break down this way:

• Clinton 49 percent, Giuliani 44 percent
• Clinton 50 percent, McCain 44 percent
• Clinton 53 percent, Thompson 40 percent
• Clinton 54 percent, Romney 38 percent

The Obama match-ups break down this way in the Gallup poll:

• Obama 45 percent, Giuliani 45 percent
• Obama 47 percent, McCain 44 percent
• Obama 51 percent, Thompson 38 percent
• Obama 52 percent, Romney 35 percent

If you are interested in presidential polls and poll results, PresidentialPolls2008.com keeps track of the latest poll results and charts them against previous poll results.