I fully support this idea, and I would also suggest disabling the merits in this thread in order to prevent competitors from motivating voters in this way.
Good, idea but was that ever done before? I mean wouldn't that mean theymos would have to intervene and make this specifically for this contest? Imho, more elegant solution would be to simply disqualify anyone that merits the voters, like @GazetaBitcoin and few others suggested. In the end, it goes in line with bitcoin philosophy about personal responsibility.
That's a terrible idea: anyone can vote on a poll, which makes (alt) abuse very easy.
In some others forums that I am active on and that are much older than bitcointalk they have the option to make poll voting public, so everyone can see who voted for who. Would something like that be possible to implement here as well?