As an early poster of the polls, I can vouch for the 'in before I post the poll' exception.

This doesn't mean contestants have carte blanche to ignore the deadline because there are times when the poll is nearly ready to go or times when we haven't caught that someone posted. It happens and truthfully the deadline is there for a reason. There's no guarantee when you post after the deadline.

Also, Gary makes the rules so.. if he makes an exception, it's made. His contest, his monkeys. Wait, that's not it... :-)