In general I don´t think that the organizer should decide but rather - as FlipPro said himself - the participants of the competition in mutual agreement.
@Quarkfx, art is subjective and everyone has their own opinion. So to have all participants be in mutual agreement is impossible.
The ones who are trolling knew the contest was going to include a final vote to determine the winner and not a single one of them had a problem with it until they weren't winning.
Shutting the competition down because a handful of people can't act like adults is not the right decision.
Nothing has changed since this contest started and whoever has the popular vote on February 8th should take the prize as originally intended, even Smaragda.
