Regardless, Campaigns that pay in bitcoin tend to have better Managers, and they probably read through people’s posting history to see if it matches-up. After all, unless they want exposure by sheer volume, managers probably look for the interest that the poster may rise, and that resides in the post’s content and areas where they post.
I figure that Managers use Merits to set an entry barrier, in order to trim the number of candidates, but not as an exclusive open-doors criteria to the campaign. A decent enough poster should be able to earn enough merits to pass the entry barrier criteria to being pondered as a candidate, and beat the cheaters though the content of his posts.