[EricH]

Giving bids to the finalist alliance due to things that happen at a competition event is not unprecedented. However, giving bids to the finalist alliance in this situation would set a dangerous precedent.

The most recent of these* was due to a verified bad call. SVR 08, F3 as I recall, the Head Ref ruled that a trackball on the overpass being contacted by an opponent was not scored (actually, opponent contact had no effect on scored or not scored that year by that method). But, instead of changing the score, and sending the match the other way (the direct effect of correcting the score), which is what could have been done, half an hour after the finals were over there was a replay. The "opponent" previously mentioned won the replay, "confirming" them as the winners. HQ stepped in within a week and said, in effect, "These teams should have won, our ref made a mistake, all teams in the eliminations get bids".

Central Washington 2013 is what SHOULD have happened in SVR 2008. (I wonder if the refs had that in the back of their minds?) I think the situation where a referee or scorer misses a call, or makes a bad one, then admits to and corrects it does not warrant extra bids being handed out--after all, they did admit that they screwed up, and they did correct the error, even if it was a bit later than teams would like. If, however, the mistake is not admitted to and/or corrected, and it is later discovered, then there is already precedent for giving the finalist alliance bids, in that case and that case only.

*I'm not including Einstein 2012 and its field issues; the only other one I can think of was Arizona 2004, which is not the same situation at all.