I would have preferred saying the judges shouldn't publish reviews--either positive or negative. On the other hand, judges can never be completely influence-free. They must bring their experience and taste to the judging table and that would include--for sure--anything they might have read before about the book, author, or even topic.

Ted,
We listened to your concerns and changed the request to judges as follows:
"Judges who are bloggers and reviewers are encouraged to review the books they read in their blogs, on Amazon, B&N.com, Midwest Book Review and other review periodicals. Please post your reviews after the awards ceremony on August 18, 2012.
We do not want reviews to affect the evaluation of other judges."
--Dan Poynter, founder, Global Ebook Awards."

Dan,

Judges should be of independent thought and not be swayed by the opinions of others, otherwise he/she should not be a judge.

Changing the request to judges doesn't alter the situation that you and the organizers feel the need for a complete lack of transparency during the judging process in order to protect judges from any reviews which might affect their evaluation of a work.

Posting reviews after an awards ceremony does not provide transparency. Judges, authors, and the viewing public should be treated as adults who possess the ability to think for themselves.