Just want to say that I think I know what the problem is:
About a week ago, when a friend and fellow PodCastle author told me that "Recognizing Gabe" had made it to the Final (I didn't even know it'd been nommed), I announced online that "Recognizing Gabe" is in the poll and fans and friends (several of whom are longtime PodCastle, etc., listeners but (like me) not previously registered commenters in the forum) signed up in order to vote on the stories.
Since the system quickly purges new users unless they also comment somewhere on the forums, I think they probably got 86'ed if they didn't comment. I know that happened with my initial account, so when I tried logging on later, I had to create a new account (same name and email).
So... sorry about the odd discrepancy with the votes/users. The votes came from people who loved the story, even if their accounts got purged. Don't know how that should count.