Reply #47: Wait a minute!

[Bill Bored]

We had only 24 hours to vote? How come we didn't have early voting for weeks in advance?

And suppose someone posted a "write-in" name for the group, followed by n/t, or answered Yes to one of these, and then went ahead and voted for one of the poll choices anyway? What mechanism is there for detecting overvotets?

And what about all the people who post here for which no vote is even recorded?

And for the Republicans in the group: What if someone clicks their mouse and (heaven forbid) drops dead just before their post actually gets to the web server? How can we tell if any dead people are voting?

And should there by instant runoffs in case one of the choices on the poll is acceptable to a voter, but he or she prefers to post a write-in? Why should they have to give up voting for a choice in the poll just to be able to cast their write-in vote?

And suppose someone has a slow Internet connection and gets online just as the 24-hours is about to end and the poll is closed before they have a chance to vote? Can they send in their vote provisionally via PM or Email? And if they do so, how do they know if it will actually be counted?

And is there a way to verify that the vote I cast that appears on the screen is actually the vote I intended to cast? Maybe someone else voted as I did at the same time and their vote counted but mine didn't. There's NO PAPER TRAIL!

And where does it say explicitly in the DU rules that we even HAVE a right to vote for Forum Names? Maybe we should leave that up to each of the forums instead? We can have forums that let their posters change their name everyday if they want to, and forums that NEVER vote for their names. I think the issue of Forums' Rights deserves SOME consideration.

And what about recounts? How much would it cost to have the moderators get together and recount all the votes, and how do we know they will do it fairly? After all, they might just want to spend some time with their families and friends after a stressful poll like this and come up with ANY old name so they can just go offline and relax?

Maybe we can just contract someone else to count our votes for us. Like FreeRepublic maybe? After all, they have no vested interest in the outcome, do they?

On second thought, I'm glad this name change election is over, even though concessions are of course non-binding. I don't think anyone has actually conceded yet, have they? But if they have, and we find some wrongdoing, what the heck -- just unconcede!

Personally, I like the new name, but we really should have had an exit poll. ;-)