At my school Homecoming consists of a court as well, and the ladies running must have a high gpa, lots of community service involvement, etc, but students still vote. Our Homecoming Queen this year was a member of the NPHC organization Zeta Phi Beta, and our Homecoming King was the President of Phi Beta Sigma (I think that was the org. he was in, but I can't remember for sure).
One of my sisters ran for HQ, but I think it wasn't advertised well enough...needless to say, she didn't win. Involvement in Greek Organizations as well as "advertising" really do play the biggest roles in those elections. Everywhere I went practically there was a paper or picture of the girl who ended up winning, and her sisters & friends were everywhere on campus promoting her---she had some awesome public relations going on.