217 'Santa's Beard'

Removed by 299

If a Player is unable to vote within the 24-hour period on account of a board outage, yet becomes able to post in the Thread again before the Secretary has announced the Result of the Referendum, that Player may request a late vote by posting within the Thread the sentence, 'Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow'. Additional Players may do likewise until the Secretary next posts in the Thread, at which point the Secretary must announce that the Referendum has gone into Chronic Hysteresis.

The Secretary may then, if necessary, seek confirmation of the board outage that prevented the Player or Players from voting within the time limit. If the Secretary is satisfied that such an outage did occur, and if the number of Players requesting a late vote is high enough to potentially influence the outcome of the Referendum, the Secretary must allow late voting. Should only one or neither of these criteria be met, the Secretary must disallow late voting. Once the Secretary has established whether or not late voting should be allowed, the Secretary must announce that the Thread is no longer in Chronic Hysteresis, and state whether late voting has been allowed or disallowed.

If late voting has been allowed, the Referendum will end 24 hours after the cessation of the Chronic Hysteresis or as soon as all Players who requested late votes have voted, whichever comes sooner. Only Players who have requested late votes may vote between the ending of a Chronic Hysteresis and the end of the Referendum in which the Chronic Hysteresis occurred. This Rule takes precedence over Rule 204.

Author: Llama Roddy