Judging Error?

UPDATE:

So after all the prizes were awarded and the paparazzi had gone home, it was discovered that there was a failure to count all of one of the team's points. What appears to have happened is that they packaged all of their smaller items in a card game box that was then taped shut without labeling it as such. To further confuse things, the masking tape label from another of their items must have transferred onto this box because, as the judges' grading notes confirm, it was treated as item #83, was not opened, and received no points. Had this box been labeled or recognized as containing other items, Team DD could have had a point total of 2835, enough to win the Vulture.

Crap, what are we supposed to do? After consulting with each other, describing the situation to former judges (without naming names or biasing with specifics), and 5 re-readings of the almost half page of explicit packet format instructions as they were stated in the rules, we have decided that this does not change results.

So there it is, judges decision stands, the team that showed us the most points with their packet won. Especially considering that DD said they had a great time otherwise, and still got some rad prizes. We sincerely hope that this will not sour relations or turn them off of the Vulture in the future.

We the organizers/judges worked very hard to get through all of the packets as quickly and as thoroughly as was possible at the time. There were certainly opportunities for errors, however we worked as a team rather than 5 individuals in order to mitigate those errors and provide the most accurate results possible for the event. The situation above was an anomaly that certainly affected results, but we believe any judging errors were relatively insignificant and would not have affected the order of placement.