I like your way of doing things for the community! I also started a contest. I don't have many participants yet, but I'm sure it'll grow eventually.
I'm just a bit worried about bots though, because they don't actually vote for quality, they just vote for whatever reasons their creators tell them to. Buying votes is something that is open to everyone, so I'm still not sure how to feel about that. At the very least they are free to be used by everyone.