Hi @chekohler, we have agreement on our first day and that case was repeated many many time that the upvotes is a MUST and that "MUST" was mentioned on the post description in the past, not right now but everyone should keep it in mind, you can do a report with me when you see those who has not upvoted but come to claim the reward and I will pass the reward to the runner up or save it for next contest round.
Most of Steemians agreed that giving a small upvote to any contest posts that they want to participate is the way to practice and learn to giveaway from their minnow accounts. That would help to keep our Steemit site getting better and better! Hope that you can understand this and wish you luck on the next round!