Exactly - without transparency and transparent checks and balances the whole system is open to both abuse and accusations of abuse. Personally I think nominators shouldn't be nominating themselves or other nominators. All their pieces should automatically be directed to standard curation for review. Preferably blind as to author, the publication might be included to show expertise has been verified in advance.

The lack of editorial guidelines is such a time waster-- having us polish pitches for types of work that have little chance of acceptance because it's fiction, poetry, political (who knows? they don't tell us), not flavour of this month.