Crestfall, you're proposing that only people who can play for 5 hours a day to ladder should be able to vote? I'm sure there are SPL-tier players who simply don't have that time to ladder who are more qualified to vote than say, me, who could probably get reqs due to the amount of free time I have that could theoretically dedicate to grinding Ubers.
edit: oh gosh the ninja
Then take into account ALSO results of such tournaments. If player is good enough (I don't know, let's say reach top4 twice, requirements may be discussed, whatever) he should be allowed to vote and NOT be forced to grind on ladder. If you find reasonable requirement here, tournaments should be alternate way to be allowed to vote without ladder grinding. For me this is simple and obvious solution in case of 'lack of time'. But IMO someone should reach certain position AT LEAST twice so we avoid some lucky player which gets a streak of lucky hax and end up in qualifying position.
And in real world for example world champions in some sports aren't forced to play in qualifiers (and in some cases lower placed teams/players as well) which is totally standard. Pokemon in this case is kind of competitive game, so I don't see why this kind of rule wouldn't apply here.
But higher requirement for voting should ALSO be allowed and I agree with players that someone really dedicated to certain ladder should be allowed to vote WITH a 'window' called good tournament placing officially approved by leaders of Ubers tier. I think this sounds reasonable if you ask me. Possibility would also be adding 'tournament ladder' with let's say top8 players being automatically qualified at the end with standard ladder as a bonus for more dedicated player.
On case itself - mistakes happens, so bashing here is out of place if you ask me and Fireburn in my opinion explained situation in a really good way. Only thing I would consider that voting should exist as it's a good way to bring some new players in no matter how you look at it and it allow players feel that they have something to say as well. Just make sure THAT requirements are high with an option for a good players which can't exactly 'grind' tier requirements (tournaments mentioned by me is one of options). This would also kind of allow avoid paragraphs judgement, which in this case ended up kind of controversial as it was mentioned before it's pretty much impossible to be truly objective here. Just my two cents.
