Quoted from Ball_Shine:

I am one of the 20 selected and I think it's become a bit of a joke "untimatesternpinballscam" is the term coined around here.
I live outside the USA so the pinball community is a lot smaller, and less people to vote.
I've been told by tech savvy people that it is pretty easy to scam votes via numerous ways.
I have a friend who has access to 30'000 IP addresses so would that be fair?
It has become a contest to who has the most internet friends, prepared to cheat, best sob story and or access to a larger pinball community to sprook their pic.
I stopped asking friends to vote as I feel like I've been begging or hounding them.
Should have been decided in-house or draw a name from top 20 out of a hat, get the production staff to vote, anything would have been better imo.
The contest is for "THE ULTIMATE STERN PINBALL FAN". So as Stern made a huge deal a bout their 30th anniversary (and rightly so as they made it through some tough times), I wanted to incorporate that and wore a 30th anniversary t-shirt and also show some "Stern love" so gave the boys a group hug. Probably not the cleverest or the best pic but at least I can explain the thought that went into mine here, and give the campaign a nudge lol. Good luck whoever wins as there are some great pics!
Here is my one

Quoted from frolic:

This doesn't seem to be a "fair" contest where people are voting for their favorite photos.
With so much money on the line, I'm not surprised to see some of the rigging, but at the same time this should have been expected and better planned for. It could have been simply to keep the vote counts hidden, and in the end the voting is only a "guideline" and final winner would be selected internally at Stern.