https://smashboards.com/threads/news-how-fans-brought-back-k-rool.457451/
This whole post is worth reading, it's basically a summary of how the ballot effected K. Rool from the perspective of a source inside Nintendo, but I found this part particularly pertinent to our cause:
People often theorize as to why Isaac was removed in Smash 4. It has always been possible he was omitted due to unrealized grander designs, however that, to me at least, was a very optimistic take. On the flip side it's also always been possible, as perhaps evidenced by this kind of reaction, that Sakurai and co. were simply unaware he still had demand behind him so far out from his games. You hear about how Nintendo secretly keeps tabs on the popularity trends of Smash candidates, but, how true is that really? As another paragraph in that post explains, they completely missed the mark when trying to predict the ballot.
They didn't have their finger on the pulse as much as they'd lead us to believe. Or really at all, since what they lead us to believe was basically a sham of an election. Ostensibly they were wrong about Bayo being an obvious frontrunner (possibly Cloud too if he was added under similar conditions), meanwhile the character propagated by the diehard Nintendo fans catches them totally off-guard.
Hearing about this kind of stuff gives me hope. K. Rool did legitimately take the ballot by storm, and it got him included. Reading further into the post, it implies that now he'll also start recurring within other Nintendo games. DK might've been an active series, but as far as Nintendo was concerned, K. Rool was a nobody, a dead character, someone without a future in the cards turned into into a playable Smasher through sheer demand.
The parallels aren't lost on me.
For trailing close behind, at least as far as we can tell, was Isaac. We "filled out that goddamn ballot", we "made a campaign and petition and made ourselves vocally heard". We followed the exact same path, and the results showed that we made some pretty notable waves. There is hardly a single ballot-era poll out there in which, removing already included characters and no-hopers/meme characters, Isaac doesn't reside damn near towards the top. He's basically a regular of the top three. I've no doubt that K. Rool outperformed him on the ballot, but the ballot is clearly what shapes this game, and we did a helluva job promoting our boy back then.
The rest is in Nintendo's hands. However if there's any instance of Isaac's popularity proving its mettle, it was with the ballot. I'm glad it's finally kicking in, and I just hope it'll be enough.
