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You're going to have to do some troubleshooting. Find out what is causing a GET request against /test2, then we can make it stop doing that.

An alternative is to use a similar approach (of scanning the table for existing records) but at the time of the vote submission to prevent another vote from being added if there are already 10 from that user.

Apparently something is trying to hit /test2 using GET instead of POST. Is it from the form? Is there any kind of Javascript involved? Does the form you posted, which clearly states it does use POST, actually have anything to do with the issue?

There is a very easy way to do this using a MySql myisam table. Store each vote in a table like this... CREATE TABLE `vote` ( `username` varchar(50) NOT NULL, `vote_year` year(4) NOT NULL, `week_num` tinyint(4) NOT NULL, `vote_count` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `time_voted` datetime DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, `voted_for` int(11) DEFAULT NULL COMMENT 'Who/whatever was voted for', PRIMARY KEY (`username`,`vote_year`,`week_num`,`vote_count`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8; Note the last column of the primary key is the auto-increment column "vote_count". This will make the vote count start again at 1 for each username each week whe you add votes. mysql> INSERT INTO vote (username, vote_year, week_num, voted_for) VALUES -> ('user1', year(curdate()), weekofyear(curdate()), 1), -> ('user1', year(curdate()), weekofyear(curdate()), 20), -> ('user1', year(curdate()), weekofyear(curdate()), 5), -> ('user2', year(curdate()), weekofyear(curdate()), 5), -> ('user2', year(curdate()), weekofyear(curdate()), 1), -> ('user2', year(curdate()), weekofyear(curdate()), 3); Query OK, 6 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> select * from vote; +----------+-----------+----------+------------+---------------------+-----------+ | username | vote_year | week_num | vote_count | time_voted | voted_for | +----------+-----------+----------+------------+---------------------+-----------+ | user1 | 2021 | 24 | 1 | 2021-06-16 17:37:56 | 1 | | user1 | 2021 | 24 | 2 | 2021-06-16 17:37:56 | 20 | | user1 | 2021 | 24 | 3 | 2021-06-16 17:37:56 | 5 | | user2 | 2021 | 24 | 1 | 2021-06-16 17:37:56 | 5 | | user2 | 2021 | 24 | 2 | 2021-06-16 17:37:56 | 1 | | user2 | 2021 | 24 | 3 | 2021-06-16 17:37:56 | 3 | +----------+-----------+----------+------------+---------------------+-----------+ 6 rows in set (0.00 sec) To do the insert in PHP $stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO vote (username, vote_year, week_num, voted_for) VALUES ( ?, year(curdate()), weekofyear(curdate()), ? ) "); $stmt->execute( [ $username, $votedFor ] ); Now it doesn't matter how many times a user votes. When you come to counting the votes for each "voted_for" just ignore all records whose vote_count is > 10 SELECT voted_for , count(*) as votes FROM vote WHERE vote_count <= 10 GROUP BY voted_for ORDER BY votes DESC

This is a fundamental difference between files and directories. On a file, the execute bit makes the file .. well .. executable. On a directory, the "execute" bit makes the directory "navigable", i.e. you can get "into" it. At present, you can see that the directory exists - you can 'r'ead it in a listing of the parent directory - but you cannot navigate into it. To do that, the directory must have its Execute bit set. More typical permissions on a directory would be 750: User:rwx Group:rx Other:(None) This link explains it better, albeit talking about NFS and UFS, but the principle applies to all types of file system. It works because you're using the Group-level permissions, which allow you to delete things. You should leave it owned by www-data: that account is the owner of this data and works with it all the time; you're just popping in and out now and again (and, if you were to move on to another job, deleting your account would not take down the whole system!) Regards, Phill W.