Bribery, Voter Fraud In Inside Self Storage Awards?

The following opinions are my own for satirical purposes. It's up to the reader to form their own opinion as to whether any fraud has taken place in this event.

So, I got this email from Jim Grant today and yes he's still claiming to be the founder of the online self-storage auction industry. In this press release...well, I'll just let you read it.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Inside Self-Storage Magazine Voters Name SelfStorageAuction.com
Best Online Auction Services

PHOENIX - Inside Self-Storage Magazine readers voted SelfStorageAuction.com, an online auction site that provides bidders with a centralized place to find self-storage auctions and attend live or bid online from virtually any location, as "Best Online Auction Services" in the magazine's "2017 Best of Business" poll.

 "We are thrilled to be honored by our peers and industry professionals who recognize our team's dedication to serving our customers in every aspect of online auctions," said Jim Grant, who founded SelfStorageAuction.com. Grant was the founder of the online self storage auction industry with the ground-breaking website, Storage Battles*, which later merged with Storage Treasures*.  Grant's companies won the ISS Best Online Auction Award in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and he has done it once again with his latest venture, SelfStorageAuction.com
"This is a testament to our website being recognized as revolutionizing the storage auction industry yet again," Grant said. "Our platform is quickly growing in popularity within the United States and is currently expanding into the international market with auctions in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom due to the large demand we are receiving from other countries."
 
SelfStorageAuction.com is a mobile-friendly website that combines the simplicity, reliability and exceptional customer service of the original platform with new features that ensure stability and are more user friendly.  Through its integrated state of the art website, Self Storage Auction interfaces with all management software companies to make posting auctions easier.
Winners of the Inside Self-Storage "Best of Business" reader-choice poll are honored through profile pages in ISS Magazine as well as during a special ceremony at the Inside Self-Storage World Expo in Las Vegas. The results are published online year-round for ISS readers to access.

   So the first thing that came to mind is "how did a company that is just a few months old and only has a handful of clients getting more votes than Storage Treasures, a company that claims to have a million registered users and thousands of storage facilities." Answer: they didn't. So, in my opinion, that leaves three possible explanations. Either A, Inside Self Storage Magazine's Best of Business Awards are for sale to the highest bidder, B someone wrote a program that casts artificial votes, or C Inside Self Storage was hacked.

But I may be completely wrong. There may be some other logical explanation for this. What do you guys & gals think about this story?

  I think there's way too much emphasis being placed on which website is the best at selling other peoples old used junk.

I think it is not really a huge issue that even deserves our attention. However, if we were to discuss on the possibilities of an impossible situation to occur, then I vouch for scenario 'B'. The most logical explanation is having a bot casting fake votes to harness excessive votes which has actually happened before in other competitions. Thus, the logic behind this method is relatively higher.

I agree with @alloro here. Honestly speaking, if it boils down to which site we should be using to sell our junk, I would honestly tell people to use all of them so that it maximises your potential. For us that buy into all these auctions, we're going to go into all the different sites ourselves to make sure that we pick out the best stuff too.