Good luck, BAM! I expect to see a lot of your stuff make the cut!
Regarding voting, whatever time CMON says it's going to start, expect it to be an hour or two late. They put in a lot of work getting great photos of all the pieces, but usually it means they're running behind when it comes to the start of the online voting. As with scoring, there's always going to be people who give their friends top scores and everyone else low ones. So the more people who go on and give real votes the less impact those other people will have. But I agree, it can be really hard choosing when all the entries are so great. The last few years my approach has been to be extra critical. Something that I'd give a 10 in the gallery might only get an 8 when I'm doing the CB voting. Still amazing work, but I try to save my 10's for just the top two or three pieces from each category (or just top one if there's something that's far an away the best). When it's too hard to pick, I'll just give the top ones all 10's and let the onsite judges figure out who should come in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
I wish they'd reorganize the online system though. It just dumps you into entries from all the categories mixed together. But there's a drop down menu at the top where you can just view one category at a time. That way you get a better sense of what's been entered and which ones stand out from the pack before you start scoring anything. It takes a little longer to go through it that way, but I feel like I have a better sense of what I want to do with my votes.