I agree that voting for a member on the basis that they're your "friends" shouldn't be the way to go about conducting your vote. But I'll say it again, there is no way that anyone could go about conducting the voting system without some element of bias coming into it. It says right in the original rules of the thread that you should vote specifically for the member you feel deserves to be named MOTW, so people know how they should be voting. But, just because one person states within their voting post that the particular member is their "friend" doesn't nullify it - even if it should be frowned upon - because who knows, maybe they truly believe that person deserves it. As I can not prove otherwise, the vote stands.
As you feel so strongly about it take the thread off of my hands and run it how you would like it to be run. I only took it over as a favour to Bodie - but I would be more than welcome to hand it over because quite frankly I'm bored with it.
But do as you please.