Election Day

The Election of Dave is a minor quest in Fallout 3.

Dave is running for President of The Republic of Dave once more and he needs your help. He asks you to talk to the four adults of his land including Jessica, Shawna, Rosie, and Bob to get them to vote. Once you have talked to them, go back to Dave and receive your reward.

There is total of 5 votes. It is possible to persuade Rosie and Bob to run against Dave in the election. Doing so would net them each one vote (if they haven't voted yet). Under normal circumstances they would only receive one vote, presumably their own.

It is not yet known if anything other than convincing citizens to run would have any effect on the result, there may be an alternate way to complete the quest other than rigging the election.

Under normal circumstances, other candidates will not win. They would at most receive one vote (presumably from themselves). The only way to get Rosie or Bob to win is to steal the other ballots for Dave out of the box before he counts them all.

Rigging the Election
After you have told Dave all the votes are in, he will go to the ballot box. If you are quick enough open the ballot box right after Dave unlocks it, steal all the votes, but leave one vote for the candidate of your choosing. Dave will count the votes and declare whomever you left a vote for as the winner. If you speak to the victor he or she will give you the code to the safe. It contains a unique Rifle named Ol' Painless, which has a faster rate of fire and does more damage. The rifle can be repaired with regular hunting rifles.

Dave will get angry and say something about leaving then storm out of the Republic. If you catch Dave as he leaves the camp he will tell you that he is going to Old Olney to liberate it from the wasteland and create a new Republic. Due to the Deathclaw infestation in Old Olney, you can usually find Dave dead on the streets somewhere. You can opt to 'escort' (i.e., follow him) to Old Olney and kill any robots, bloat flies and Deathclaws you encounter. He will finally park himself in an alleyway and say something like "This is the New Republic of Dave. Go away." After being talked to three times, he will attack you.

Alternatively the player may decide to use this quest as a method to more sneakily complete the You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head quest and avoid the residents being turned hostile (assuming you don't have any interest in talking Dave into giving up his key). To use this method, make Dave lose the election and when he leaves follow him a short ways away from The Republic of Dave (so the residents don't witness the murder) you can then "shoot 'em in the head" without killing or being shot at by the Republic of Dave residents.

If you take Ol' Painless from the safe you will receive negative karma, even if you have the key. If you then speak to someone from the town, it is possible they will take Ol' Painless from you. If this occurs the only way to get it back is through more negative karma of either pickpocketing it or killing them and looting it.

Bugs
Several people report that this quest is easily broken.
 * The voters don't vote after being told to do so, they just stand in front of the ballot box, doing nothing; a work around after reverting to a previous save, is to ensure you give a full minute in between telling each to vote. The bug is pathing conflicts with no specific NPC having path priority. This can also being avoided by telling them to vote one at a time, following one and waiting him to vote and go back to what he was doing before asking the next to vote.
 * The NPC Shawna can die from mysterious circumstances and her body is never found. Bob, Jessica, and Rosie tell you Shawna died but Dave seems to have no idea. If this happens, Shawna cannot be told to vote and the quest cannot be completed. Also it's possible that, after talking to Dave, there's no entry in your quest log, i.e. the quest is not properly triggered.
 * To fix the problem with the people standing in front of the ballot box, doing nothing: Open the console (~) click on the frozen person and type in "resurrect" press enter. They will respawn and vote. (This works well for many problems with frozen people in Fallout 3 as well as in Oblivion)
 * If Dave does not win the election, the victor would reward you with the code to the safe. Even so you will get karma penalty for taking items from the safe (including Ol' Painless). Items are considered stolen.


 * if you convince bob and Rosie to run for president and rig it so that they tie Dave will still say either bob or Rosie winning but he will not leave the republic and will act like he is still president.
 * If you open Dave's safe after getting his key, he will attack you. If you kill him and the other people who attack you in the room, then Bob becomes the new president.