I made this thread primarily to get the issue out there in the open. I didn't really expect to find a solution. I just wanted to expose the problem to the CAP community at large.
There are a lot of people in CAP who think that these poll results are being decided by reasoned consideration of CAP members. And even in the case of noobs who don't think too hard about what they are voting for -- most people think the noobs are "CAP noobs", at least. Unfortunately, that's just not how it works these days. There is active recruiting from other sites, there are organized voting campaigns by "teams" of voters, and there is outright cheating going on -- quite a bit of it actually.
I personally hate it. But, I cannot think of any way to eliminate it without altering the fundamental accessibility of the CAP project, which is one of the primary reasons for CAP's popularity and success. I appreciate the many suggestions posted in this thread, but I don't expect to put any of them into practice. I think the damage would exceed the benefit.
Hopefully this thread has removed the community's rose-colored glasses, and exposed everyone to what's REALLY going on in some of our most hotly-contested polls. At the very least, you won't be naive if you see some suspicious voting patterns in a future poll. And to submitters that participate in various CAP polls (not just art btw) -- now you know what you are really up against, in certain cases.
I do think we need to make a rule that says all forms of poll tampering AND recruiting is illegal. Realistically, there is no way to enforce such a rule. But the existence of a rule makes it clear that we do not condone or encourage such practices. Without a rule, it's possible that people could assume that voting campaigns are "allowed" -- and take it to a whole new level.
Imagine if people started offering to buy votes? What if an artist made a triple-flawless legendary giveaway thread in wifi, with the stipulation "I will give you this pokemon if you vote for my art in the current CAP poll." I have already outlawed server mods using wall messages to advocate poll options on the CAP server. But what about other servers? What if other communities openly post CAP vote recruitment messages in their forums?
Technically, none of this is illegal today. It may not be happening currently, but now that the issue is out in the open -- if we do not make a rule, people could assume that these actions are actually condoned. For this reason, I think we should make a blanket rule that says:
"All forms of vote cheating, vote manipulation, or voter recruiting from outside the CAP project is disallowed. It is perfectly acceptable to advocate for or against poll options within the bounds of the CAP project."
Maybe that's not the perfect wording -- but that's a decent start. A short, somewhat ambiguous ban on voter manipulation and cheating, followed by a statement that allows advocacy within the CAP project itself. I do not want to get into long detailed descriptions of what constitutes "vote manipulation", "voter recruiting", and "the bounds of the CAP project". It's intentionally left somewhat open-ended. Moderators will use their best judgement, if a questionable situation arises. By placing a blanket ban on all this nonsense, we make it clear that we do not accept or condone these practices, even if we really can't stop it completely.