User blog comment:EmpyrealInvective/Regarding PotM (again)/@comment-4715955-20151120055057/@comment-5643552-20151120064513

The issue there is you could still have sock accounts or people gaming votes from other sites.

Yeah, but this way would be a lot harder for them to get away with it. We wouldn't be forced to indiscriminately accept votes from every random anon/bandwagoner/sockpuppeteer/etc (as is the case with the poll system). Having them give a reason their choice should win is just icing on the cake - if they can't come up with a good reason, their vote is worthless.