RULES FOR THE CONTEST:
How The Best inBuckeye Works
Nominations and Voting
The contest proceeds in two phases – a nomination period and a voting period.
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 Buckeye and as existing ones change and grow.
2. Voting round: The excitement builds with voting organizations and attractions in each category! This is the only voting round, and the winner will be crowned The Best inBuckeye.
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 know The Best inBuckeye 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.
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
Newly registered users can immediately nominate/vote for a short time (for 7 days), without clicking the emailed "Log Me In!" link. After 7 days users will need to click the "Sign In to Continue" link and enter the email address used to register. An email will be sent containing a personalized login link to continue nominating or voting. Users do not have to re-sign in everyday unless browser cookies are disabled. Be sure to bookmark the personalized login link for easy access!
All users have to click the "Log Me In!" link once their session expires to continue nominating/voting (for 30 days). After 30 days users will need to click the "Sign In to Continue" link and enter the email address they used to register. Another email will be sent containing your personalized login link to continue nominating/voting.
Before sending an email for assistance, please be sure to search your entire email account for an email from noreply@mail.revfluent.com to find the email containing your personalized login link.
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 2025?
Nomination Period: April 10 – May 31, 2025
Voting Round: July 1 – July 31, 2025
Winners announced: Aug. 8, 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 will receive hundreds of nominations, we may get backlogged.
The good news is your business only has to be nominated once, assuming it met the guidelines.
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 Voting Round. I think it should have. How do I register a complaint?
Email us at best@inbuckeye.com no later than 24 hours after the 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.
Q: How are the winners selected?
Winners are those that received the 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.