Accusations flew across the hypernet as a hotly contested naming rights battle occurred over recently colonized planet OT-442b, now known as “Danakil”.

Alternate candidate “Vulcanus” had taken an early lead, and was projected to win by a small margin, however a late surge by Danakil’s supporters tipped the balance and ultimately proved victorious.

Manipulation? [^1]

Virtual commentator TwilightSentinel was the first to note the abrupt flip, and called for an investigation. Vulcanus’s supporters immediately began accusing the other candidate of vote rigging and ballot fraud, with one notably orange coloured team leader declaring:

If you count the legal votes, Vulcanus won easily! This is a bad voting system. It’s amazing how bad it is. Nobody knows more about voting systems than me. I’ve been talking about this bad system for a long time. Everybody knows that Vulcanus won. Bad!

Election overseers were quick to point out that no widespread voter fraud had been detected, and that the contest had been carried out under standard galactic regulations on the neutral APEX platform. However, the Vulcanus team leader continued to claim otherwise:

If you don’t count the illegal votes… a lot of votes came in late, and we’re looking at them very strongly. The illegal ones. I have billions of votes. They are good votes. Tremendous votes. Billions and billions of good legal votes. They were stolen by the Danakils!

The statements provoked widespread criticism, earning a truth rating of “0% - Overalls on fire” by Galactifact, but the Vulcanus leader refused to back down from his allegations. In response, Team Danakil issued a single line statement:

We won. Get over it.

The next planet naming contest is likely to be subject to intense scrutiny.

[^1] Image Courtesy: https://www.chipin.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Should-Robots-vote.jpg