We recently received the following comment:

I want to be helpful, and due to some discussions on my blog, I wanted to pass on some comments/thoughts to you. Have you considered that you are running an unregistered contest/raffle in each of the states? Have you discussed your legal ramifications with a lawyer if you and any of your ‘helpers’ should win? That’s illegal as far as I know, but I’m not a lawyer.

We had not really thought about the legalities of running the Homeschool Blog Awards. Our goal is simply to encourage the homeschool blog community. We don’t want to do anything that would bring shame to the awards, the vendors who graciously donate prizes, or the nominees. For that reason, we have researched the potential legal issues, talked with attorneys, and compiled what we hope is a thorough legal policy.

We did not initially exclude the HSBA contributors from being nominated for the awards. Since there are prizes to be won, and we don’t want to give the perception of impropriety, the volunteer contributors have removed themselves from the list of nominees. There are also some contributors who’ve stepped down from the team, so they’re sitll eligible to participate in the awards. Our legal counsel didn’t believe that there was anything illegal about our participation, but we prefer to take the high road in this matter.

If you plan to participate in any way with this site (commenting, voting, or potentially winning a prize), you are in effect agreeing with our rules and regulations for this awards contest and the site in general. We hate to make everyone read a bunch of legalese, but in the interest of protecting all parties involved, we must insist that everyone who pariticipates with the HSBA be in agreement with the Policy.