Fortunately, it turns out that it is possible to vote for a banned candidate, although as WHarvey indicated in the thread about this which he locked, this was unknown when Attorney28 was banned.

That at least protects the right of those FlyerTalkers who want to vote for him to do so.

If Attorney28 had posted something which deserved a ban (which is debatable) the moderators should have waited until the election was over to put it into effect.

By refusing to do so, they made it impossible for him to speak about the issues in the election. Perhaps more importantly, they made it impossible for people who are voting to learn what his opinions are.

I know that FlyerTalk is not a democracy. It is a privately-owned business. However the elections are being presented as a democratic exercise by that business and therefore should be run according to the principles of democracy.

Instead, as jan_az pointed out, harmless posts by some candidates were removed almost immediately (without even the courtesy of notification) by the TalkBoard president. Others, made by a moderator who accused me of arranging a secret smear campaign (an utter lie) and calling Attorney28 a "weasel" remained up for several days -- despite having been reported.

I know that Attorney28 and I are competing for votes from the same constituency. Anything which damages his chances of being elected therefore automatically aid mine.

I would greatly prefer not to be elected than to benefit from this sad twisting of democracy.