NEW YORK — Rush Limbaugh has won a children’s book prize designed to be chosen by kids themselves.

But that doesn’t mean all of his voters were young people.

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Rush Limbaugh received the Children’s Choice Book Award for author of the year, defeating superstars such as Veronica Roth, Rick Riordan and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” writer Jeff Kinney. The Associated Press

On Wednesday night, Limbaugh received the Children’s Choice Book Award for author of the year, defeating superstars such as Veronica Roth, Rick Riordan and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” writer Jeff Kinney, the winner in 2012 and 2013.

The conservative commentator won for “Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims,” a book that landed on the best-seller lists of Amazon.com and other outlets despite limited mainstream coverage.

Nominees for best author are determined by how many copies their books sell, while the winners are supposedly picked by kids, who vote online.

However, Robin Adelson, executive director of the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader, nonprofit organizations that co-founded the awards seven years ago, acknowledged Thursday that adults could easily vote and vote multiple times, a problem not uncommon for Internet competitions.

“Every one of our finalists gets fake votes every year,” Adelson said. “We like to think that’s the enthusiasm of adults who love children’s books.”

Adelson cited three ways that people can vote: a widget that can be embedded in popular kids’ websites such as www.poptropica.com, a link on the awards website (http://ccbookawards.com) that allows individuals to vote and a link on the awards site that allows teachers, librarians and others to submit bulk votes on behalf of their institution.

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