No Quarter: Voting Restored

So the voting has been re-enabled here for the Washington State Quarter. As noted previously, the earlier vote was freeped in the manner that often accompanies such polls. In this case, the damage was caught and they did something about it, which is appreciated.

The state government also did two other things of note to change the page. First, they no longer are presenting the up-to-the-minute numbers of the votes, so there is no way of knowing how your choice is doing. This may result less of a temptation to skew the poll (if your fave is losing), but also sort of defeats the "horse race" nature of such polls.

Secondly, and more importantly, they now have a disclaimer stating that the poll will only be "a part of the process". How big a part is kind of nebulous, and will probably have influence only if it agrees with the people in the room making the decision at the end of the day. So if the apple lobbyists are there, we may be looking at a very, very ugly coin.

More later,