For the nominations users at least had the option to skip sections if they couldn’t think of anything to nominate. For the voting, in order to get the participation reward players had to vote for something in each category.

This led to a lot of users who don’t care about the actual voting and just wanting the participation to vote for the one game they recognized in the category.

Popularity based on trolling. Every year Labor of Love goes to Terraria or CSGO or something earnest like that.