Ok, well after some to-ing and fro-ing, Cosmo have responded with a statement regarding the issues I raised. While I still don’t feel that it is in any way fair to highlight some entries and not others, regardless of the reasons why, nor do I feel it is fair to not distinguish between commercial and non-commercial blogs, I do feel that they have gone some way to unravelling some of my concerns. The only thing that leaves me confused is that it is not the number of votes for a particular blog that will see it through to the shortlist, but a choice made by Cosmopolitan staff. Anyway, here is the response, shown here by agreement with Cosmopolitan.

“Thanks for your constructive criticism of the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards. We have noted your comments and feel you have made some valid points. We’re glad you think that recoginsing blogging talent via the awards is a good idea as we do. This is the first time we have run this particular competition or indeed anything like a contest of this structure so as you can imagine it is a learning process for us.

We’ve addressed your points in the following manner:
*We’ve now added clear dates, guidelines and notes on the structure of the competition regarding nominations and the voting process in order to clarify how this event is being run. They can be found here: http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/your-life/cosmo-blog-awards-terms-and-conditions/v1
* We have allowed multiple nominations from single users. Blogs that have been nominated will go into the pool from which the shortlisting team will choose the shortlist so it doesn’t matter how many times they have been nominated. Votes for the winners from the shortlisted blogs will be limited to one vote for each blog category per user. We will be cross checking votes to ensure that spamming does not occur.
*We do want to recognise blogging talent by providing bloggers with a platform to gain more visibility online. We hadn’t considered the impact of running this initiative at the same time as nominations for the Blog Awards were taking place. At no stage was their any intention to influence votes and at the voting stage we will ensure that there is no bias. To further reassure you, the shortlisting panel consists of six Cosmopolitan staff members across online, print and communities in order to ensure fair judgement from different areas of expertise.
We’ll be announcing the shortlist on 9th August.”

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