Zelda, Friend Code, and other Wii stuff

I know it's a bit late, but: I bought Zelda: Twilight Princess for Wii! I've been playing up to the second dungeon and it's very impressive so far!  Therefore, I might be missing another week from here

Anyways, I connected my Wii to Wi-Fi, updated it, and downloaded the two new channels: Internet (actually not new, but didn't come with the console) and the Everybody Votes channel.

And now that I can send messages online, I ought to give my friend code: 0123 7218 1455 2464. However, I'm not sure how exactly Wii Friend Codes work.

Finally, although the other channels work quite well, I can't seem to enter the Voting Channel, not even by switching my home country to USA (which I did to enter the Shop Channel ). Am I the only one with this problem?