An email from a passionate applicant, over the weekend, drew my attention to the issue of ‘votes’. I quote verbatim:

“Though the contest is very well thought of, I would like to ask you if this contest could be in any way more favourable to people who are related to IT companies or call centres, where they can have a regular generation of mails from their friends working in similar or same companies?

Can an average Indian like me who has a small business of his own and a good social circle be at par with such people? Clearly the votes being generated by non-relatives and non-friends profile visitors is very minimal and hence the count solely depends upon how many people one can convince to vote for them. I think you may agree, though the concept is excellent, people who are close to IT industry will definitely stand at a much higher advantage than others. This may also explain the fact that many contestants with high number of votes are from Bangalore.
Another factor is probably people who have not much work to do and are on a fake id creating spree and voting under fictitious identities”

Team GDC clarifies that the COUNT of votes is not an absolute determinant, to make it to the shortlist of TOP 100 applications. It is certainly one of the factors, but not the ONLY one.
We want to make the “good votes” count because you all have taken a lot of effort to reach out to your friends, families and colleagues – and there is no intent to penalize all because of a few bad apples. While there is no available technology to make an absolute determination of votes created under fake identities, there are tell-tale signs that can be easily picked up, inferred, and corrected via human intervention. Our team is already reaching out to many such applicants and ensuring that the contest remains as fair as possible.

A friend of mine, visiting over the weekend, checked out the great driving challenge on my laptop. He is a passionate traveler and has clocked several hundred thousand miles in his Fiat and Maruti Esteem. Being a neo-luddite, he does not care about a blog, social network or photo-stream to share his experiences; just has amazing stories to share over endless cups of coffee. My dear readers, does my friend really stand a chance? I am sure there are many more people like my friend, this challenge will fail to touch, and that is the reality.

So, if more votes come from Bangalore or if breath-taking photo streams emanate from a Nikon D3, and inspiring stories are penned by a gifted writer – so be it . Let us all enjoy the shared experiences, and let the Jury do their job. Your comments are welcome!