Being a little socio-political left-wing nutbar, I found this whole issue really interesting. There are several points.

1.) Massive amounts of new users voting for particular people (I bet this might even be limited to geography, though I don't know what data is available.)

- This is definitely not fair and definitely not in the spirit of an open and fair contest. Someone trying to skew the votes seems to have ruined it for everyone

2.) People who are new and went through the effort to enter are not allowed to vote.

- This doesn't seem too fair either. Perhaps, since results are hidden, they could 'manually' vote? Either limited to people who made the top 5 or anyone who entered. I think the later would be best, if you participated in the contest, you should be able to participate in deciding on a winner as it proves you're not just here to vote for someone, never to be seen again. How about it Dan?