Tribunal Judgment and cancelled votes

Tribunal Judgment
[Political Action] Political Action

Requires a Sabbat vampire.
Choose a vampire who cast any votes in the most recent referendum (must be since your last turn). Successful referendum means that vampire takes X damage, where X is the number of votes he or she cast in that previous referendum.


If, during the last referendum, a vampire (eg: prince) cast his votes and then you cancelled those votes (say with Demonstration or Telepathic Vote Counting) does Tribunal Judgement deal any damage to that vampire?

I would say yes. In order to cancel votes they had to be cast in the first place.

Robert wrote:

I would say yes. In order to cancel votes they had to be cast in the first place.

Instinctively, I would want to rule the other way, but can't find backing for either point of view.

My issue is with other cards that look at how the votes were cast, which - to me - generally appear to be saying "If the vampire/Methuselah was casting votes in such a way at the time of tallying, then..."

For example:
The "when votes are tallied" there appears to apply only to the timing of the pool burn. Would we say that a Methuselah who cast votes against the referendum but then had them changed in favour (or forced to abstain) would burn pool? It's arguable. Instinctively, I'd say we wouldn't - but for the life of me, I can't find anyone asking a specific-enough question along these lines about any relevant card - pretty much everything I can find is the other way round, such as "Does someone else forcing me to vote the wrong way mean I suffer the penalty of a card like Treachery?" See also Scorn of Adonis and Bribes.

Perhaps more relevantly (but also without apparent questions on this):
I would very much suspect that the intent is to only use the vampire's state of voting when results are tallied. If the Favor-user casts their votes in favour and is then subsequently forced to abstain or vote against, it would seem weird for the Favor to go in play.

But I can't find precedent.

This is rare. We normally have some aort of similar ruling.

Damn. Im at work, but my best idea is ask a magic 8 ball......(seriously. Buy one. Its a good edge....)

Id assume attempting to cast the votes counts. So id assume that cock robin would take 3, or 2 if hes wearing condemnation mute( hey, synergy.... sort of. Trade a damage for a burn a blood when it passes )

But cancelling the votes means he still tried. Abstaning is zero, but im gonna go with casting is casting. Same issue as bribes, right? If you get your votes negated, do you gain pool?

By the text of Tribunal Judgment, any casting of votes, regardless of whether they are cancelled, counts.

According to text, Bribes works the same way.

However, I agree with James that -intuitively- only votes that are part of the final tally should be counted.

From a management perspective, it seems easier to remember or record a vampire's ultimate vote in a referundum. A vampire could in theory vote for, against, and abstain all in the same referendum because of various effects, and it seems like too much of a pain to have to keep track of the entire history. It might already be hard to remember what the vampire's final vote was.

AaronC wrote:

From a management perspective, it seems easier to remember or record a vampire's ultimate vote in a referundum. A vampire could in theory vote for, against, and abstain all in the same referendum because of various effects, and it seems like too much of a pain to have to keep track of the entire history. It might already be hard to remember what the vampire's final vote was.

I cannot see how it may be "hard to remember what the vampire's final vote was" when that tally is integral to the final outcome of the referendum, due to passing or not passing and Voter Capping, etc. Also, Tribunal Judgment does not seem to care if a vampire's vote casting was successful or not, just if it was cast at all.

My last sentence was redundant, I'm a little drunk, apologies.