[Li Jianliang]

I had a similiar situation at Sacramento.

Nobody knew when the animation judging was when I asked the information desk on the first day. Later, I was talking to two animators from other teams when some Autodesk person finally showed up. I was informed that my team's animation wasn't on the list- I had to bring in a laptop with the animation immediately if I didn't want it to be disqualified. So I grabbed the team laptop, which fortunately had a copy of the animation, and went over to some secluded judging room. There was no announcement that I remember about animation judging- the student judges there were informed by others who happened to be there when the Autodesk person showed up. One team's judge rushed in late and remarked the absence of any loud 'n clear announcement.
No one had a ballot. No one ever received one, if I remember correctly, so we all ended up hastily sketching lines and boxes on plain paper and calling them good.
After judging, I was told to bring in a DVD of my team's animation, just in case if it won the Regional, by the next morning. o_O Someone on my team spent quite a few hours trying to burn the DVD.
The next day I turned the DVD in, which happily worked. I was talking to another animator the next day whose animation was submitted but never judged- turns out it was the wrong format; an .AVI instead of a .MOV. He said that no one told him to resubmit or anything. Hmm. I think there were 11 animations at the Sacramento Regional but only 8 were available on the official DVD.