I put in my "yes" vote today.
Basically, the idea behind having a ton of people vote is that it will keep the newspaper interested in the story. That way, they will run more stories on Alex and her chickens and print editorials that are mailed to them from the area and from out of state.
One of the news values is "timeliness." If something has happened recently and it is still important to people at the time, it is worth reporting on because people will want to read about it.