Ideally, nobody should send merits in that topic. Practically, the rule states only that if you are nominated by someone at a category and you merit that post, that vote for you at that category will not be counted. So in theory you could send merits to other peoples voting for other users. Still, if you'd do that, it would only encourage others to act as well and also may some will not read the rules. As a consequence, they could merit posts where they were nominated, which would lead to have those votes not counted... It is best to not use merits inside that topic...