Some things are best to just let go. The community's gonna get a reputation for bombarding any and all polls. If it's saved for ones with actual significance then it'll mean more. It'll make an actual statement. Otherwise, peeps'll eventually clock on and realise that Shenmue will insta-win pretty much everything, leading to eye rolls, sighs, and fanboy rage.
Any examples of similar situations / indicated consequences with/from games/fanbases? By the way, those "peeps" are free to call their own communities for action, and if their communities are more dedicated and plethoric than ours, then they have the means and they are free (always by what the competition/poll creator has put as rules and allows) to use them and win.
Remember back in the day when kids magazines had a section where you could send in drawings of your favourite character that appeared in said magazine? How amazing would it be to see yours being published? Now imagine someone got their dad to draw it for them, or they traced it, and yours didn't appear because that one was picked over it. Fair enough if there's a prize involved, good on them for being smart and devious enough to do it. Otherwise though, what's the point?
This is unrelated. You present an example of voting with drawings and some of them will be picked up as the best ones. For one, the selection of the best drawings would be not by the readers who would vote for it and based on percentages, but by the subjective judgement of the magazine's publishers. X-One Mag's poll is about voting from potentially all existent Internet users and it is based on percentages (not on judgement). Furthermore, they have include the "Shenmue 3" option, therefore they are not subdue that and the open chances it to be the winner.
It's like these developers and publishers that've got plenty of money in their pocket to fund their own projects, but take to Kickstarter anyway. They're free to do it, and it's not against the rules, but it's kinda goin against the whole idea of it's existence. This poll is for the X-One community. Their readers. Do you buy it? Are you a part of their community? Or are you just gate-crashing it because you wanna spread the word of Shenmue?
Again I don't see any one-on-one connection of the example with the current case. You say it is only for their readers. It is not and here is why: 1) the poll is open to the public view [they even tweeted publicly about it (their Twitter account is public and they don't protect their Tweets )] where all existent Internet users are welcomed to vote, 2) if it was only for their readers, then they would have put that poll via a system that would require for them to give credentials that would prove they are readers of the magazine and then they are allowed to vote, 3) they didn't suggest not to, exclude or prevent any endeavour to call your community for action to vote for the game which is relevant to the community's nature. Epilogically, no one is gate-crashing everything, because individual Internet users have the right to vote or not vote, for whatever reason or game.
I've said in the past, instead of pissing off other communities, efforts should be made to help them instead. A gang of thieves terrorising villages makes them no friends, but a group of heroes protecting the villages or helping them out may gain one or two new recruits.
This is what we do, we help them. How? By advertising their poll, we advertise them, their website, their magazine. Some people wouldn't have known that this magazine/website exists (myself included) without becoming interested to participate in that poll which is relevant to their subject game of interest, that is Shenmue. Furthermore, that kind of advertising, call for participation in that magazine's open to the public poll, would potentially and increase the possibilities to raise the magazine's website's traffic (with everything this implies). Even so, some may become interested in their magazine and be one of their subscribers.
By the reasons explained above (both two paragraphs), we are not by any means of any kind terrorists.
The aim should be to expand the community. Growth. If the name "Shenmue" appears everywhere, leaving negative opinions in it's wake, then how exactly is that helping? Just think about it for a second. Aggressive tactics aren't always the way to go.
The name "Shenmue", or "Shenmue 3" to be correct, has already appeared in that poll by its creators themselves. The possibility the name "Shenmue 3" to appear alongside with a high percentages of votes, does not by any reasoning imply that it will leave a negative opinion by default. It would be just a name with a percentages of votes. Opinions are being crafted in people's minds by their holders, and given the circumstances of the poll, it does not indicate any meaning of negativity projected towards the public eye.
Even so, the means used to encourage fans to vote for the game which are fan of, any kind of them are not prohibited by the poll creators (as also explained above).
But hey, this is your "baby", so why pay attention to any constructive criticism? It's not like it could lead to any form of improvement...
This is semi-irrelevant to the subject of the poll, but here's my take on that:
Construct means to build up. Criticize means to tear down. If you want to praise, get after. If you want to criticize, get after. You cannot build up and tear down at the same time.