Let me begin with the usual reminder . . . when this post goes live, there will be just two days left to vote on the trio of “T” Stories for this round.

If you are a reader of our stories and someone who votes, thank you in advance for casting a vote for your favorite of the three. Links to the stories and the poll for voting for “Alphabet Challenge T-Stories” are HERE(link) Votes will be accepted until noon, Chicago time, on November 27th.

Right . . . on with the show.

No, wait . . . here’s a photo for the non-readers . . .

OK, so . . . on with the show

At the beginning of this round, one of the readers made an error in voting and — after a discussion amongst the writers — we decided to adjust the votes to reflect the intent of the voter.

All fine and good, except that in the process I discovered a few things about the votes. Things that looked odd.

I’m a certain way when it comes to things I’m in charge of . . .

So, yesterday I spent many hours reviewing all the votes for the Alphabet Story Challenge, looking at times, IP addresses, and a few other things . . . and I found more oddness. Then, I had to track down the source of the oddness (not all, just the ones I could confirm).

Of what I could confirm, I found I benefitted from some extra votes that I shouldn’t have, plus a few other that may or may not be valid . . . and so I removed them all. I only removed votes in my favor because those were the only ones I could confirm.

Luckily, after an exhaustive search, I concluded the votes only altered one result. I thought it was more than one, but — in comparing the snapshots at the end of the voting with the current counts for the various rounds — it turns out in some rounds people had voted for the other stories after the deadline. Perfectly fine, but those — in addition to my extra votes — were not considered.

Look, I know it’s confusing. Here’s the bottom line . . . these are the new standings.

Based on the votes I discarded, the boxes marked in yellow reflect the only change to the results. Where I was listed as winning that round, I actually tied with Gary.

“Big whip!” I can hear people say. “Was it worth all the time spent?“

Yes, Bob. It was. I may have been extremely annoyed, but it had to be done.

Suffice it to say I will be scrutinizing the votes much more closely for this round and until the end of the challenge.

I now leave you with another photo . . .

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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