There are zombies lurking in the top 100 witness list, even now. Mindless abominations, they shamble around, soaking up votes from living witnesses. Okay, so maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but there are still dead witnesses in the top 100. Over the last year, most of the active witnesses, myself included (at least, when I was really active, before school started), made a strong push to raise awareness about dead witnesses. After all, pitching your vote to a disabled witness node doesn't really serve much of a purpose in securing the stability of the network, which is ultimately what witnesses do.
So, in an effort to raise some awareness and hopefully illustrate the issue, I've compiled a list of disabled witness nodes in the top 100 as well as the major voters behind them:
steempty (23,088.9 MVests) has 1734 voters
(24 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 20, 518.8 MVests of voting weight)
witness.svk (20,102.1 MVests) has 1914 voters
(23 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 17,129.8 MVests of voting weight)
roadscape (17,333.9) has 2831 voters
(34 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 12,603.2 MVests of voting weight)
bacchist (9,936.9 MVests) has 635 voters
(7 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 8854.7 MVests of voting weight)
arhag (8,713.5 MVests) has 1517 voters
(21 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 5876.7 MVests of voting weight)
cyrano.witness (6,150.6 MVests) has 349 voters
(8 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 5,831.3 MVests of voting weight)
agoric.systems (5,434.9 MVests) has 153 voters
(8 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 4,692.4 MVests of voting weight)
bayareacoins (5,192.1 MVests) has 83 voters
(1 voter over 100 MVests, totaling 5,114.5 MVests of voting weight)
tdv.witness (3,621.3 MVests) has 66 voters
(1 voter over 100 MVests, totaling 3,298.8 MVests of voting weight)
team.alpha (3,341.6 MVests) has 21 voters
(5 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 3,364.4 MVests of voting weight)
picokernel (2,686.1 MVests) has 117 voters
(5 voters over 100 MVests, totaling 2451.9 MVests of voting weight)
All figures accurate as of 24 Jan 2017. Information pulled from 
As you can see, there is a ton of voting weight that is being left on the table. I'd also like to note two other things.
First, there are a lot of recurring usernames behind these dead witnesses. If you look at the lists I've compiled, you'll see a number of names are voting for multiple dead witnesses. Since these are generally large votes, these is disconcerting. I suspect most of them haven't realized that the witnesses they're voting for are disabled, or that they haven't realized they're still voting for them. Whatever the case, I hope that this will bring the issue to their attention.
Second, and related to the first, many of these disabled witnesses are in the top 100 list solely by virtue of one or a few very large votes. I purposely included the total vote weight and the vote weight of all voters over 100 MVests to illustrate this point: without the few high-powered votes these disabled witnesses receive, they'd be well below the 100 line.
I'm not making any claims as to who these voters should be voting for (though, of course, I wouldn't mind some of those votes). The point of this post isn't to advocate one or another. What I'm trying to bring attention to is that the voting power currently dedicated to these dead witness nodes can, and should, be used to support active witnesses. The purpose of voting for witnesses is to ensure that stable nodes are in place to ensure the stability of the network. Disabled witness nodes don't help in that regard. So, if your name is on those lists, get out there and change your votes!
If you want to vote for me as a witness, cast your vote here! Scroll down until you see this text box and type in my name.
