I think I've got the wiring sorted out correctly now, and thank you so much for your help with that.

I do have another question about the diagrams i posted, if you might know the answer. In one of the diagrams, the capacitator connects a terminal lug of the resistive material to the back of the pot, while the other diagram connects the capacitor to the sweeper lug and the back of the pot.

Now, I know very little about all of this, and my current assumption is that the capacitor is there to ground out excess energy from any sort of power surge to keep from frying the electronics. If so, what is the difference in how they are placed in these two diagrams? And if my assumption is incorrect, what is actually going on here, circuit-wise?