Creator here - no vote manipulation. In fact, I don't actually know anyone who has a hacker news account, believe it or not. Just an intriguing title I suppose?
That's what I would say ;)
But I do believe you, without reading your comment. I just liked the idea and upvoted. I'm extremely curious about how many people actually do this though. I'm sure we could crowdsource $10 on HN to learn those stats, say, a week from today ;)