I'm a 'Why a good night sleep is important to me' finalist! An update on the votes

A couple days ago I posted about my excitement over being chosen as a finalist for a contest. There were about 200 entries and the staff chose 5 finalists which then went on to public voting.

The prize is really awesome (one CozyPure® organic La’Noodle Natural Latex Mattress Topper and two La’Noodle Pillows) -- these are items that would really be beneficial to me because I have Fibromyalgia. They asked people to tell them in less than 300 words why a good night sleep is important to them and it needed to be on target with the theme.

After I was notified that I was a finalist I went to see what the other entries were all about and I liked the ones they picked as finalists. I really thought my entry would have a good chance at winning or at least getting a runner-up prize until I watched the voting unfold. Mine is entry #5, just to tell ya.  :o)

In that last post I also talked about how disappointed I was that one of the entrants was obviously cheating. I actually watched the voting for a few hours that first day (going away from my computer and refreshing the page) and I seriously couldn't believe what I was seeing! In the very first hour of voting, entry #1 received about 80% of the votes and there were 5 entries!

It really was SO obvious that people were able to vote repeatedly for the same entry and that is exactly what was happening for that entry. I could have done the same thing, I suppose... but I'd rather win a contest fair & square. Who wants to win something when their competitor was better?

After talking about this on my last article, someone suggested that since the entry said she was a college student that maybe she was a member of a sorority - and that one Facebook wall post could cause a massive increase in votes. I totally agree with that and don't doubt that the entrant asked for votes on their Facebook page and that is how they got ahead. Kind of. I still think someone hit that vote button repeatedly and the majority of those votes for entry #1 were duplicates.

I promise I'm not being a poor sport! I like entry #1, I really do. I love that she quoted a song her Grandma used to sing to her and if I wasn't a finalist myself I probably would have sent that one a vote. Now I DID talk about my female cat named Jim and my soft & fluffy husband so I might have had a hard time deciding between those two, ha.

So... the reason I'm writing about all this again is because I *think* the sponsor might have caught on to the funky voting and that's good news to me and the other underdogs!

I see that the voting page looks different now. I was REALLY hoping that they'd re-run the numbers (because the sponsor HAD to have seen how funky it looked!) and the percentages would be more even. Unfortunately the numbers didn't change... no votes were taken away from entry #1 and I'm still barely hanging on to 2nd place.

It's not that 2nd place is bad, that's not what I'm getting at. Yes, the prize is awesome and yes, it would help me a lot if I had something like that to improve the quality of my sleep. I can't speak for the person who owns entry #1 but no matter what a prize is or how badly I thought I needed it... nothing gives you the green light to cheat to win it. Heck, it's expected to poke & prod people you know in hopes that they'll send a nod your way but cheating? Totally out of the equation.

Oh well... at least entry #1 isn't so far ahead of everyone else now, right?

Let's hear it for the underdogs and thanks for listening to my insane ramblings. I'll keep you up to date on the contest and I'll let you know who ends up winning.

~ Faith