I wish moderators wouldnât guess at how this works. You guys should know. YES, you can change your pick as many times as you want UNTIL voting closes. This is 100% true. Just click the button and it turns black to show you who you picked. If you come back later and arenât sure if youâve already picked, or who you picked, or if it registered, just look at the ballot to see if the circle is black. If NO circle is black, you didnât vote.
If you want to change your vote, there are two ways to do so. Since voting has closed for this week, I canât see an active ballot, so this is from my memory. Either 1. Just click another circle next to the team you want to pick, and if it turns black and your previous pickâs circle turns white, then you succeeded. If instead you see a bar graph, look for the bar thatâs blue; thatâs who you picked. You can even look at the player icons below the bar and youâll find yours. If there are a lot of voters, it might not initially show them all; if so, thereâs a down arrow to click to show more. If you havenât customized your icon, unfortunately youâll just be a faceless generic icon and youâll have to hover over each of those long enough for the name to pop up, but if the bar is blue, youâll be there.
If voting is still open and itâs showing the bar graph, then youâll need to reopen the ballot by scrolling to the bottom and finding a link that says something like âShow votes.â I donât remember exactly what it says, but something like that. Click it and the ballot returns so you can change your vote.
Until the voting closes, you can change your vote as many times as you wish. Once the Thursday deadline passes, voting is closed and your vote is locked in.
The reason Iâm a bit loose in my memory is that the mods donât always post the same kind of ballot each week. Youâd think there would be a well-documented method of how to do this; after all, the survivor pool has been run for many years now. But it seems each year thereâs a new mod running it and they have to guess at some things. I donât know why; perhaps the community board features change periodically. Whatever the reason, there should be very clear instructions each year, and there seems to be some loose ends that arenât always clear.
What is clear is the deadline. Thursday, an hour before kickoff. This always wipes out 1/4 to 1/3 of the field in week 2, and continues to catch a few people each week thereafter. Most other pools donât close until the final Monday night game, which makes sense. They obviously donât let you vote on games that have already kicked off, but if youâre willing to pass on earlier games and restrict your vote to those unplayed games, why not? Anyway, Bovadaâs survivor pool has never worked that way, so Thursdayâs the deadline (be an early bird for Thanksgiving! the deadline is before the FIRST kickoff). I like Bovadaâs way since it eliminates a lot of my competition! 
Pay attention or donât get paid!
Someone in this thread complained (I think) that right after voting you could see how many voted for each team, and who they are. I think there are pros and cons to that, but really, so what? Itâs the same for everyone, so itâs a level playing field. Either none of us can see how everyone voted until itâs closed, or everyone can see. I donât see it as a big deal. Right now, with most of the field still alive, most of the votes are going to the biggest favorites, so itâs no surprise. I can see some gamesmanship being worthwhile later in the season if there are just a dozen left, but again, so what? Everyone is using the same ballot, so no one has an advantage.
I hope this is clear. Just to be clear on one thing: I donât work for Bovada; Iâm not a mod. Nothing I say in this post is gospel. Itâs what I think. But since the moderators posting on this pool this year all seem to be new and not sure how this works or even what weâre asking, I decided to step up and try to answer questions as best I can. If anyone notices a mistake Iâve made here, by all means please correct me. Thereâs no way I can look at an open ballot and test what Iâm saying since this is Saturday. But I am 100% sure you can change your vote at will until voting closes.
