Locking of close options

Question

I just voted to close a question as a dupe and selected a question that was meant as the dupe (Dupee? Dupor?). However in hindsight I realized that the question I had selected was not really a dupe of the question I was voting on, so I rescinded my vote to close.

I have since found a better dupe candidate, but now I can't perform the voting action. When I click on the close link it tells me that I originally voted to close 21 minutes ago and retracted my vote 10 minutes ago.

So can I re-vote? And if so, when? And if I can and I am time locked out, how do I know what that time limit is?

---

I would recognize the irony if this is a dupe, but I couldn't see anything in my quick scam of the site.

Answer 1

Such a change would require updates to the software behind Stack Exchange, and thus have network-wide implications. It was requested several years ago; see MSE at Allow another close vote after retraction and specifically Tim Post's answer. He does not explicitly decline the request but is skeptical:

I worry about the following things, however, and the thought of them leaves me sufficiently concerned that I'm willing to say this might be a bad idea.

Consider:

• Easy to just edit a post so you can vote to close it again
• The same group of users hovering over a question to decide its ultimate fate, now consider this group at odds with each other. The system would have to allow this only on substantive edits.
• Suggested edits approved by people other than the author seem really weird here, even if substantive.
• How often do you really think this is necessary?

Now, we could work around the potential for abuse, but that leads me to my last point:

• This would not be easy to implement

I'm not marking this as declined because you've tickled my consistency bone and I want to see input from more folks. In other words, this is just my opinion on the feature, and not an official response to it.