Not entering Else Statement from user.is_authenticated - django

Question

In the castmascotvote view, everything is working when I'm authenticated, but not working otherwise. I have a print('entering not authenticated') right when it enters the else statement if the user isn't authenticated, but it never enters it, i'm boggled. I don't understand at all why it's not working. does anyone have any idea where I should start looking?
error message
The view didn't return an HttpResponse object. It returned None instead.
But I clearly have a HttpResponse object!
.html
<form class="mascotvoteform" action="{% url 'castmascotvote' mascot.id %}" id="{{mascot.id}}">
<div class="p-0"><h4>{{ mascot.name }} </h4> <p> by {{ mascot.author }} </p></div>
<div class="p-0"><img class="img-thumbnail" src="{{ mascot.image.url }}" style="width:250px;"></div>
<div class="row p-3">
{% if mascot.total_votes is 0 %}
<div class="col"><h5 id="mascotvotes{{mascot.id}}">0</h5></div>
<button class="col btn btn-primary" type="submit" id="castmascotvote{{mascot.id}}">Vote</button>
{% else %}
<div class="p-0 col"><h5 id="mascotvotes{{mascot.id}}">{{ mascot.total_votes }}</h5></div>
<button class="col btn btn-primary" type="submit" id="castmascotvote{{mascot.id}}">Vote</button>
{% endif %}
</div>
</form>
.script
$( document ).ready(function() {
$(".mascotvoteform").submit(function(e) {
{% if user.is_authenticated %}
e.preventDefault()
{% endif %}
let mascot_id = $(this).attr("id");
let url = $(this).attr('action');
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: url,
data: {
'csrfmiddlewaretoken': $('input[name=csrfmiddlewaretoken]').val(),
'mascot_id': mascot_id,
},
success: function(response) {
console.log('success', response)
$(`#mascotvotes${mascot_id}`).text(`${response['total_votes']}`)
};
},
error: function(response) {
console.log('error', response)
}
});
})
.views
def castmascotvote(request, mascot_id):
mascot = PoopMascot.objects.get(id=mascot_id)
user = request.user
if request.method == 'POST':
if user.is_authenticated:
if user in mascot.votes.all():
mascot.votes.remove(user)
else:
mascot.votes.add(user)
total_votes = mascot.total_votes()
data = { "total_votes":total_votes }
return JsonResponse(data, safe=False)
else:
print('entering user not authenticated')
messages.error(request, 'Please sign in to vote Poop Hero!')
return render(HttpResponseRedirect(reverse('user_login')))
else:
pass