This is actually a really important matter to talk about.
When it comes to marketing campaigns, I believe most of us were not prepared at all - I, personally, thought that with votes and support from family, friends and the community that played my games for the past ten years, it would be enough to be at the first positions, at least in number of votes...
What a surprise it was, when I saw a lot of games jumping ahead... I thought about giving up, but I didn't. We all should expect a big challenge: some Devs work/study at places full of people with computers, some Devs know a lot of people, some have solid Fanbases and so and so on...
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I believe transparency is a big deal, and now that the subject was brought up, I must say: I agree, the thought of bots and cheating upsets me sometimes, because, man, creating an actual marketing campaign is nervewrecking, we're running around almost 24/7 in order to promote the Game - not only in the Internet, we're doing it in the real world as well, and it's really frustrating, people don't care, not enough to actually download and vote, but what would be the point of giving up half way?
And we almost gave up for a lot of different reasons. We now regret the misspell in the Game's name: we thought it would be clever, but it just makes it harder for people finding the game; We regret not including a second language option (English is not our primary language, we lost a lot of people, potential voters, because of this)... We tried a more mature artstyle only to find out that most of the people we talk about prefer Anime style... The game's strongest point: narrative... probably one of the hardest elements to promote "Ah yes, our game looks rough and simple, but the ending is really good, you should play for an hour despite all the lack of visual appeal! It'll be worth it, you have my word, sir!" =D
If there's cheating, let's hope that the judges will see through it...