I believe that the deadline was poorly announced. It was pointed out in the awards forum.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...light=deadline
I believe that waiting until the last twelve hours to submit is a bad idea. The website URL can be entered at anytime, they don't lock the website to the version that is available when you click the button.
The Chairman's Award and Woodie Flowers are very important and it would be sad to miss out because of high traffic at deadline, whether noon or midnight. Those are best submitted at least a day before.