Nominations and Voting
The contest proceeds in three phases – a nomination period, a first round of voting and a final round of voting.
1. Nomination round: The contest starts with a nomination round, where readers can propose business, organizations and names for all of the categories, including new categories. This keeps the contest fresh as new businesses and organizations come to the county and as existing ones change and grow.
2. First voting round: In the first voting round, readers vote to winnow the big list of nominated businesses, organizations and attractions down to just the Top Five in each category.
3. Final voting round: The excitement builds with voting on the Top Five businesses, organizations and attractions in each category! This is the final voting round, and from this will be crowned the Best of the Best.
Fair Voting Rules
Nominees/entrants are prohibited from soliciting votes by offering payments or exchange of value of any kind.
Voting is limited to one vote in each category per person per day. During the nomination phase, nominations can be entered once per category per hour.
Even though we require sign-ups, we recognize that some people, in their enthusiasm, may be tempted to vote several times using different email accounts. Please note that voting under multiple email accounts violates the rules.
We do have systems in place to detect fraudulent voting. When we see evidence of fraudulent voting, we may eliminate all suspect votes at our discretion. In extreme cases, we will remove entrants, as well.
We know the Best of the Best contest matters to the community and to the businesses and organizations that are nominated. That’s why we take its integrity so seriously.
Our commitment to integrity is simple and iron-clad: We let the voters decide – and we never, ever pick favorites. Not even the biggest advertisers get any special treatment.
• Some of the ways we guard the integrity of the contest include:
• We run a two-stage contest – like having a primary and a general election – to minimize the chances of fluke winners getting chosen out of a big crowd.
• We post our guidelines for each category publicly, and we rely on community members to tell us if a nominee does not belong in a given category.
• We run the contest on a neutral voting platform run by outside experts with no ties to local businesses.
• The voting platform has built-in tools to detect and prevent fraud.
Sign-In Rules
Registration and sign-in are available during the contest's open periods. If you see a countdown, please return once it completes to register/login or to nominate and/or vote.
Newly registered users can nominate and vote immediately for the first seven (7) days without logging in on the same device.
Once the 7-day period has ended, or should you wish to participate from a different device, you will need to click the "Sign In to Continue Voting" link near the top left of the contest page in the colored bar under the header and contest copy. After entering the email address you registered with, you will receive an email from noreply@mail.revfluent.com containing your personal login link to continue nominating and/or voting. Please check your spam folders in case your email client sent it there. If indeed it was delivered to spam, please mark it as "Not Spam" to ensure you receive communications in your inbox going forward.
Bookmark your personalized login link for quick access! Users do not need to sign in daily from the same device unless browser cookies are disabled.
Sign-in sessions remain active for 30 days. Once a session expires, users will need to sign in again using the bookmark in the email or requesting a new email by clicking the "Sign In to Continue Voting" link again.
Before requesting support, please search your entire email inbox for a message from noreply@mail.revfluent.com containing your login link.
If you still have not received the email, contact support by clicking the "Have a Question" near the top right of the contest page in the color bar under the header and contest copy and we will reply as soon as possible. Please provide the email address you believe you registered with.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do I need to click a submit button to finalize my votes?
No, users do not need to click a submit button when done nominating/voting. Votes are recorded as soon as the vote buttons are clicked. If a user decides to change their vote, the change will take place as soon as the vote button next to a different business listing is clicked.
Q: What are the key dates for 2024?
Nomination Period: May 21 – 25, 2025
First Round Voting: July 9 – July 14, 2025
Final Voting Round: Sept. 3 – Sept. 8, 2025
Winners announced: Oct. 29, 2025
Q: I nominated my business, but I don’t see it showing up on the website in the list of nominees. Why is that?
If you’re looking at the site during the nomination period and don’t see a business you nominated, fear not! All valid entries are considered and reviewed. But in order for a nomination to show up on the site, we have to approve it manually. Because we receive thousands of nominations, we can get backlogged.
The good news is your business only has to be nominated once to make it to the first round of voting, assuming it met the guidelines. And if it did meet the guidelines, it does not matter if it showed up on the site during the nomination period.
Q: My business was nominated, and I saw it on the website during the nomination period, but it is not showing up in the voting round. Why?
See the guidelines answer above. After nominations close and before voting opens, our team does its best to vet all nominees. While your business may have appeared during the nomination period, our team may have determined it was ineligible for the voting round.
Q: My business was nominated, but did not make it to the First Voting Round. I think it should have. How do I register a complaint?
Email us at best@journal-news.net no later than 24 hours after the First Voting Round opens. You must identify the category and tell us why you think your business should have been included.
Like most humans, we sometimes make mistakes, and if we have, we’ll add your business within moments of our decision.
Q: What guidelines are used to determine whether a nominated business qualifies for the first voting round?
Please see the "Nomination Guidelines" sections and "Category Exceptions and Special Notes."
Q: How are the winners selected?
Winners are those that received the most votes in their category. Finalists are those that received the second- and third-most votes in their category.
If there is a tie, we will announce both winners and/or finalists.
Q: Why does this contest allow people to nominate/vote every day?
The Best of the Best contest allows daily voting—once per person per day per category—because daily voting rewards entrants with passionate supporters. With a single vote per person, entrants with the best name recognition have a distinct advantage, as many voters skim over categories and cast their votes casually. Name recognition is an important part of finding the Best of the Best, but we also want to reward the passionate loyalty some people have for their local favorites, which can be captured in daily voting.
Also: This contest is fundamentally about celebrating and supporting great area institutions by raising their profile and helping them gain new fans. With daily voting, the contest raises the visibility of those businesses and organizations that uses it to reach out to new and existing customers to ask for their support, through advertising and through their own channels.
We reserve the right to change these guidelines. Check back here for current guidelines.
