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I just got the Electorate badge on StackOverflow, which is nice, but I noticed a number of top users aren't yet listed (inluding Jon Skeet and Marc Gravell, who would certainly qualify).

This made me wonder how the badges are retrospectively applied. Is it just that the display is heavily cached and the badge is awarded when the user logs in again or something?

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They do not qualify for this badge. Pay attention to the required voting ratio.

You must have at least 600 votes for questions, and your ratio of answer votes to question votes must be 3:1 or lower.

If you have 600 question votes but 2400 answer votes, that means you are not eligible. If you want to be eligible, you'll have to vote for a lot more questions.

To satisfy the requirements of this badge, every fourth vote (at least) should be for a question.

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  • Ah yes I misread thanks. However the wording is still a bit unclear to me. From your answer it seems the badge is awarded if you've voted for questions 3x as much as you've answered them? But I initially read it as "answer/question ratio", and on rereading as "ratio of answer votes to question votes". – Rich Seller Jan 2 '10 at 12:10
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    Is there any indication of what one's ratio actually is? I very rarely vote for questions, but often vote for answers - I'd be very surprised if I've not voted for 3x as many answers as questions. – Jon Skeet Jan 2 '10 at 12:53
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    ... unless the badge treats "better" as "less than". The wording isn't very clear, to be honest. – Jon Skeet Jan 2 '10 at 13:14
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    Yeah, that description could really use a touch up. – womble Jan 2 '10 at 14:04
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    @Jon: I believe Jeff has worked hard querying the database in the last decade to invent a badge that a handful of users can get and yet you don't have! – xmm0 Jan 2 '10 at 16:06
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    Your explanation doesn't show how this user stackoverflow.com/users/123582/rich-seller got the badge: while he may have 600 question votes, he definitely does not have 2400 votes in total. – Ether Jan 3 '10 at 4:15
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    you can get it by casting 600 question votes and zero answer votes. Does that help clarify? After you've cast 600 question votes, the ratio is all that matters. – Jeff Atwood Jan 3 '10 at 4:17
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    Yes it does. I must have been smoking something. :) – Ether Jan 3 '10 at 4:22
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    If I want this badge I basically have to stop voting on answers. Is this really what we want to encourage? – user27414 Jan 3 '10 at 20:42
  • @Jon B, if you vote for 1 question for every 2 answer votes, eventually you'd get there – Rich Seller Jan 5 '10 at 10:29
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    Do votes for a Community Wiki count? – Zoredache Mar 8 '10 at 1:21
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    Why not change this to at least 600 votes with a minimum of 250 votes on questions? That way, someone could have 2000 votes and still get the badge with 250 votes on questions. I think that makes it easier to understand the requirements for the badge. – zooropa Jul 11 '10 at 16:42
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    How can get the breakdown of votes on questions versus answers? – zooropa Jul 11 '10 at 16:43
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    Hi, is there a way to check to check the ratio? Usually I vote on a question and 1-2 of its answers, thus I guess I should have got the badge by now. – Michał Pękała Jul 16 '10 at 8:51
  • You can't check the ratio. See meta.stackexchange.com/questions/45381/… – mattdm Mar 20 '11 at 12:47

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