Just to comment about the "hidden" submissions, they haven't been that well protected - there has been a link in the sitenotice area on watchlists at en.wikipedia since the process was opened to submissions. Looks like its been taken down yesterday or today, but I don't think you can hide something by advertising it on the watchlist of the largest project's participants!
There was always (and is now) a link from the page http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/Translation
Cheers Yaroslav