Rails 3.2 Merit Gem Badge not Working

Question

I've read all the current questions and answers about the Merit gem. And attempted to follow the solution given here Rails: Merit Gem Badge Not Registering or Displaying

initializers/merit.rb:

# Use this hook to configure merit parameters
Merit.setup do |config|
  # Check rules on each request or in background
  config.checks_on_each_request = true

  # Define ORM. Could be :active_record (default) and :mongo_mapper and :mongoid
  config.orm = :active_record

  # Define :user_model_name. This model will be used to grand badge if no :to option is given. Default is "User".
  config.user_model_name = "User"

  # Define :current_user_method. Similar to previous option. It will be used to retrieve :user_model_name object if no $
  config.current_user_method = "current_user"
end

# Create application badges (uses https://github.com/norman/ambry)
 # Merit::Badge.create!(

badges = [
  { id: 1, name: 'democratic-society', description: "Voted twice", image: "straight.jpg" }
]
badges.each do |badge|
  Merit::Badge.create!(badge)
end

But after 3 hours of trying I've gotten nowhere. I have a badge listed in sashes and my user has that sash id (badges_sashes returns "empty set" though...) but when I try the following code:

application.html.erb:

<% current_user.badges.each do |badge| %>
  <%= badge.name %>
  <%= badge.description %>
  <%= image_tag (badge.image) %>
<% end %>

badge_rules.rb:

grant_on 'posts#vote_up', :badge => 'democratic-society', :to => :user do |post|
  post.votes
end

There's no error message whatsoever... so I'm at a bit of a loss on what to do next. I can't even get it to display the badge name. Any help would be appreciated. I get absolutely nothing in the view.

posts_controller.rb:

class PostsController < InheritedResources::Base
  before_filter :authenticate_user!, only: [:vote_up]

  def index
    if params[:query].present?
      @posts = Post.tire.search(:query => params[:query])
    else
      @posts = Post.order("created_at desc").paginate(:page => params[:page], :per_page => 15)
    end
  end

  def vote_up
    begin
      current_user.vote_for(@post = Post.find(params[:id]))
      flash[:success] = "Thanks for voting! Be sure to come back to find out the winners!"
      redirect_to [@post]
    rescue ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid
      flash[:error] =  "You have already voted on this one. You're only allowed one vote per song."
      redirect_to [@post]
    end
  end
end

development.log:

Processing by PostsController#vote_up as HTML
  Parameters: {"authenticity_token"=>"SVWawkgb2hpkAJztuJjIKuIfRww/OjSAZAVpUqKeMOc=", "id"=>"243-worse-than-moe"}
  User Load (1.3ms)  SELECT `users`.* FROM `users` WHERE `users`.`id` = 5 LIMIT 1
  Post Load (1034.1ms)  SELECT `posts`.* FROM `posts` WHERE `posts`.`id` = 243 LIMIT 1
  EXPLAIN (35.6ms)  EXPLAIN SELECT `posts`.* FROM `posts` WHERE `posts`.`id` = 243 LIMIT 1
EXPLAIN for: SELECT  `posts`.* FROM `posts`  WHERE `posts`.`id` = 243 LIMIT 1
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------+
| id | select_type | table | type  | possible_keys | key     | key_len | ref   | rows | Extra |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | posts | const | PRIMARY       | PRIMARY | 4       | const |    1 |       |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------+
1 row in set (0.04 sec)

   (0.1ms)  BEGIN

  Vote Exists (99.0ms)  SELECT 1 AS one FROM `votes` WHERE (`votes`.`voteable_id` = BINARY 243 AND `votes`.`voteable_type` = 'Post' AND `votes`.`voter_type` = 'User' AND `votes`.`voter_id` = 5) LIMIT 1
  SQL (152.3ms)  INSERT INTO `votes` (`created_at`, `updated_at`, `vote`, `voteable_id`, `voteable_type`, `voter_id`, `voter_type`) VALUES ('2014-01-09 15:23:45', '2014-01-09 15:23:45', 1, 243, 'Post', 5, 'User')
   (390.5ms)  COMMIT
Redirected to http://liquid-radio.com:3000/posts/243-worse-than-moe
   (0.2ms)  BEGIN
  SQL (47.5ms)  INSERT INTO `merit_actions` (`action_method`, `action_value`, `created_at`, `had_errors`, `processed`, `target_id`, `target_model`, `updated_at`, `user_id`) VALUES ('vote_up', NULL, '2014-01-09 15:23:47', 0, 0, 243, 'posts',
 '2014-01-09 15:23:47', 5)
   (76.0ms)  COMMIT
  Merit::Action Load (0.3ms)  SELECT `merit_actions`.* FROM `merit_actions` WHERE `merit_actions`.`processed` = 0
   (0.1ms)  BEGIN
   (160.6ms)  UPDATE `merit_actions` SET `processed` = 1, `updated_at` = '2014-01-09 15:23:47' WHERE `merit_actions`.`id` = 13
   (99.3ms)  COMMIT
  Post Load (0.1ms)  SELECT `posts`.* FROM `posts` WHERE `posts`.`id` = 243 LIMIT 1
  CACHE (0.0ms)  SELECT `posts`.* FROM `posts` WHERE `posts`.`id` = 243 LIMIT 1
Completed 302 Found in 7214.0ms (ActiveRecord: 2337.7ms)