We were supposed to know the results Friday — as illegitimate and botched as they may be — to the new mascot vote sponsored by the Illinois Student Senate and the RSO Campus Spirit Revival. The vote, which took place Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, a week and a half ago, was complicated further with an additional “no change” option on the second day.

As information trickles in regarding a University moot court case filed by the RSO, it is even more clear that the organizations involved with the vote are not being as direct as they should be. If they believed this vote to be as definitive as they seemed to make it, they should have alerted voters as soon as there was a possible delay of the results. At that, these organizations should have been transparent about the reason for the withholding, too — and not 10 days after voting ended.

When the smoking ban referendum passed through student vote in November 2011, the results were released the day after voting concluded, as they should have been. That issue, although not as contentious as the one at hand, carried its weight among students. And its results were released within an appropriate time frame.

Whether the results are released Monday or a year from now or never, voters deserve an explanation. The longer that this vote’s disclosure drags on, the less legitimate the vote becomes.

Replacing the mascot, reviving the Chief and any other conversation about this topic will continually drag on, and students and alumni have made that fairly clear.

Now, there is another referendum in the making to keep the Chief as the symbol of the University, despite the contest. Few are yet willing to let this go, and no one likely will until this issue is given the room to heal. The more we try to replace or fight to bring back the Chief, the longer these wounds are going to stay open.

Matters of deep-seated cultural significance can take decades, centuries even, to heal. Regardless of any rational thought, issues like this can’t be resolved without time, especially if they are to be resolved democratically with, say, a vote. People on all sides of the mascot issue still think based on emotion and beliefs, not logic and reasoning. This way of handling situations like this is no different than the gun violence debates in Congress, or even slavery 150 years ago.

Certainly, issues like this do require conversation, but it must be at the right time. If the time is not right, someone has to make that time, but no person, no organization has that power yet.

Drag on as it may, the latest vote on the mascot issue has nearly reached the nadir of insignificance. A week ago, it may have been interesting at best to know which kraken design fared the best, but at this point, the vote is borderline worthless.

If anything, answer us one question: where are the results?

We want to know. Kind of.