Yes you can be surprised and it is true that large number of 1st places belongs to people who entered for the very first time.
No substitution for entering into competition and also NO excuse for using the site and not voting, unless if you didn't know its existence that if you are here, you can't use it...
I am always for positive and not negative reinforcement, but liked the block suggestion. How about adding to torture and making them forbidden for using memory or battery or both while photographing with their digital camer for 1 week too,
BTW may be would be benificial to add another list next to "Who visited the site in past 24 hrs", enlisting those who visited the site during past 15 days and not voted?...Refering them as "Yet to cast voted".
My advise to whomever thinks voting is hard is to just run a full slide show of competition images, and then listen to that deep inside voice that tells you one of these images is The ONE, even without any obvious merits. Remember the best judges are those who do not know any or much about the subject. This is the basis of criminal judicial system in USA where a group of ordinarily 12 people from society, decide if a convict is criminal or a free man... If you though voting for a picture is difficult, then think of those 12 people that could be any one of us (US citizens for this example) sending the convict into street or electric chair...