It's a shame that the matches begin at 5pm Pacific, I'll be missing the start of most matches.
It makes sense from SBAllen's side, plus we may get to see larger vote swings which could make things interesting.
We could see larger than expected trend shifts just from the double votes for registered users, as the registered user vote will be more concentrated near the beginning of the match. The early vote totals will likely see an improvement by getting moved to 8:00 PM Eastern, but it will be tough to measure that with the registered user bonus.
Another thing to keep an eye on during the first few days is how quickly the site adjusts to the new starting time. When 12 hour matches first appeared in the 2010 Character Battle, it took less than a week for the site to adjust to the starting time for day matches. I don't expect the new starting time to be an issue for the site as the previous 2 contests had a countdown timer above the current matches counting down to the start of the next matches, and this timer should make a return for this contest too.
Does anyone think it would be better to add the registered user bonus at the end of the match? Rallies tend to do just enough to win so a few thousand votes being added may reverse any rally.
Thatd be pretty damn funny and a better rally prevention measure.
But it'd make the match itself way less exciting. ---