Good luck having to parse all that random data, Alex. You've got to nominate the mods this year? When did this start? Usually it was just chosen by staff.. Not being ungrateful but I'm afraid I'm gonna miss something as I'm only a casual watcher.
It helps us get a wider range. It helps for the months when first and second are super close and lets us have a wider variety of builds.
It also stops comments like "I can't believe this wasn't included in your selections!", and it's worked well for the last couple of years. Remember this is just a way of curating the final shortlists - the full article with loads of eye-candy is still forthcoming. Do go ahead and email, though, people remember just doing this gets you a chance to win a three pack of Corsair's new LL120 RGB fans.