A bureaucrat is ultimately responsible for closing an RfA and determining whether it was successful or unsuccessful, though their decisions are supposed to reflect the community's consensus. Controversial RfAs have a less likely chance to succeed than one with clear consensus.
A bureaucrat takes into consideration the numerical !vote tally, all discussions, and forms an idea of what the community's consensus is. If the community clearly supports the candidate, the bureaucrat will close the RfA and grant the candidate administrator status.
A bureaucrat takes into consideration the numerical !vote tally, all discussions, and forms an idea of what the community's consensus is. If the community clearly supports the candidate, the bureaucrat will close the RfA.
Typically, bureaucrats are strictly hands-off during the voting process, but there are certain circumstances where a bureaucrat will alter the course of an RfA. For example, bureaucrats may extend the time of an RfA past seven days, restart the process, or close it early. Two reasons a bureaucrat may close an RfA early could be Wikipedia:Snowball clause or Wikipedia:Not now, basically cases where the candidacy is doomed to fail. An RfA is extended or restarted in order to make consensus clearer (e.g. An issue or issue caused many votes to be changed).
