Cannot vote on a poll if you do not *yet* have any cookies locally

protected String getPersistentValue(HstRequest request, String pollDocumentName) {

        if (request.getCookies() == null) {
            return NO_COOKIE_SUPPORT;
        }

        String name = getCookieName(request, pollDocumentName);

        for (Cookie cookie : request.getCookies()) {
            if (name.equals(cookie.getName())) {
                return cookie.getValue();
            }
        }

        return null;
    }