Good luck Halo! I am happy to see you are getting ready for upcoming elections :)
I would just like to clear up some misconceptions here... If you think that Halo is 'my person' in some mysterious way, congratulations, you are wrong again! :D If you jumped on Halo because of that please take it easy. The only connection between us is being SMs one after another and we both love our state. I didn't step down specifically for Halo to make her new SM. It could have been anyone who wanted to take part in the last SM election. I was looking indeed for anyone who is active, if there was no one willing to take part I would have gone for another term. The reasons for stepping down were:
1) At the time prior to the election I had some issues with paypal and found out I can't use my visa directly for buying sub. Paypal issue got resolved sooner than I expected, but not soon enough to make me sure everything would be alright. I was able to renew my sub just 2-3 days before losing SM rank which was about a week before the election.
2) Next issue was that my visa card was also about to expire. It was happening during the holidays. Without a card attached to a paypal account it's impossible to subscribe for recurring paying. It means, even with the first paypal issue resolved it would be risky to eventually stay without a card and not be able to deal with my sub which could lead to losing SM rank. Of course, there is an alternative for remedying it but better safe than sorry.
3) I had my personal reasons for assuming stepping down was a good idea at the moment (mostly lack of free time I was experiencing during the last few a couple of months), for these same reasons I stepped down from another role as well. That being said, if there was no one up to take on the SM role I would have made a way to continue to avoid our state being without SM. But since Halo decided to go for it, it seemed as a win-win solution.
Halo was one of the most active players during State wars. There was a group of players always ready for our next action and Halo was among them. I consider any of these players reliable and responsible enough. No matter if it was Halo or another player from that active group, I would feel safe enough to leave SMing in their hands.
To anyone who likes to judge others I can only say it's hard to correctly judge anyone with any role based on their first, last or any other two months only. While it is beneficial for SMs or PB to show off at an early stage of their first term it doesn't say much about how it's going to look in the long run. Someone can seem a great SM just to end up being not so great PB, and the other way around. These two roles seem similar to many players way more than they actually are. PB duties are much more than just hosting contests, at least it was like that. Of course, there is also a personal factor on how much someone is willing to offer.
On the other hand, roles evolve. Being SM now is not the same as it was 2-3 years ago. Being PB after February might be very different than it was during my terms for instance, which was also very different compared to PBing a couple of years ago.
Expressing concerns and expectations, asking questions, etc. is ok and is welcome. But ganging up this way against one candidate is a shame! Only makes me curious how it's going to look like with other candidates if there is going to be more :)
Chris himself said other candidates may include some of his points so I don't see the problem if Halo did it if she actually agrees and likes them. I had questions coming from some SMs from other states if I was ok with them copying and re-wording part of my programs or asking me for suggestions on what to add or perhaps what to skip back then. Some didn't even ask, instead they checked campaigns from previous SMs and PBs, took parts they liked, worded it their way and no one was pointing fingers and had problems with that. Suddenly it is an issue. After all, no one keeps a hand on your mouse so you will vote anyway for the candidate of your personal choice.
♡ ¡ like the forum posts ! ♡ 
