Two weeks in and 6,000 votes later ...

We're just two weeks into voting for the SEMO MVP Award, and 6,000 fans already have made their choice in our fourth annual survey. We're on track for the biggest voting total so far with at least another week remaining to vote for Southeast Missouri's high school football MVP.

A trend that's raised questions (including a few accusations) is the sudden spike in votes for individual nominees over a short period of time. It's happened a few times in the past two weeks of voting, and it happened today.

But it's not cheating. It's not deception. It's just clever marketing.

Thanks to social media sites, word of our SEMO MVP Award has spread across Facebook and Twitter for the past 13 days. And as social media junkies know, the right post to the right friends at the right time can generate plenty of action (and, in this case, SEMO MVP Award votes).

In the past, nominees have gotten waves of quick votes through announcements at football games, in faculty meetings, on radio stations and in newspapers.

But it's not cheating.

And to make sure it's a fair and accurate count, vote totals of each nominee are checked each day to be sure they're not manipulated through multiple votes or spamming from an individual IP address. Cheating won't happen, and if it does, it'll be addressed and corrected quickly.

But until voting ends (when each nominee's season ends), there's nothing wrong with spreading the word. It's fair game.