This depends on how long Zeealex set the poll to run. Do you remember Zee?
It has been around 10 days, but it was discussed (somewhere) that a 10 day voting period is too long. I think 7 days should be enough time.
What do you guys think?
7 days sounds reasonable to me.
Also, we are not getting enough votes outside the participants. Only 5 votes for this contest?
Any suggestions as to how we might get some of the other forum regulars to vote?
The obvious thing that comes to mind is that the general prominence of the competitions could be better.
Can we highlight the voting thread around the forum somehow? Is the 'popular threads' side bar completely automated according to how many replies they've had, or could particular threads be stickied to the top of that? Sure, it will appear in the 'recent posts' side bar too, but that starts a fair way down the page and changes far more often.
Put the voting thread itself in a more prominent place further up the home page?
Make it clearer in the forum rules that competitions are open to everyone to take part in, whether it's to watch and vote, or submit an entry, or both?