Best of the 'Burg (Wickenburg Sun): How Voting Works & How to Win

Best of the 'Burg, four editions into Wickenburg's own readers'-choice ballot

The Wickenburg Sun publishes Best of the 'Burg under River City Newspapers, and hosts the whole ballot through Second Street rather than on the newspaper's own site. That platform choice, havasunews.secondstreetapp.com, is shared with other River City Newspapers titles, but Best of the 'Burg keeps its own separate listing and its own separate results.

The count now reaches four: 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026. The most recent of those opened July 13 and closed August 19. Past that specific window, the confirmed page stays quiet on the rest: what categories the judges use, and how many times one supporter may vote, are not spelled out anywhere on it.

Confirm on the live ballot each cycle for anything past that table. Four confirmed editions is a longer run than some Second Street ballots carry, but it still has not produced a published category list or a fixed vote-cap rule.

Same publisher as Best of Havasu, a separate ballot entirely

River City Newspapers runs more than one Arizona readers'-choice program on Second Street, and the closest to Best of the 'Burg is Best of Havasu, sharing the same publisher and the same platform account without sharing a category list, a judging pool, or a results page.

A win in Best of the 'Burg leaves Best of Havasu's own tally completely untouched, shared publisher or not, and the four CommunityVotes ballots on this list answer to an entirely different network than River City Newspapers. Entering several of these at once means keeping several separate rulebooks straight, not following one shared set of rules.

Why the shared publisher is worth naming up front

Because Best of the 'Burg and Best of Havasu sit on the same Second Street account under the same publisher, a supporter searching loosely for "River City Newspapers best of" voting could land on either listing without realizing they are different ballots. Only havasunews.secondstreetapp.com's own Best of the 'Burg page settles which one actually counts for Wickenburg.

Wickenburg itself, with no wider area named

The confirmed page ties Best of the 'Burg to Wickenburg and stops there. No neighboring town, no county, and no formal region beyond "the 'Burg" nickname appears on the current listing, so this page adds nothing the Wickenburg Sun has not itself published.

A business outside Wickenburg's own city limits that regularly draws Wickenburg customers is not clearly excluded from a ballot carrying that name, but that remains a judgment call for the business, not a boundary River City Newspapers has actually written down.

Building on a four-edition track record, not a fixed calendar

Four confirmed editions give a Wickenburg business more history to plan around than a brand-new Second Street ballot would, even without a published category list. Lining up real customers ready to click through to havasunews.secondstreetapp.com once the window reopens, and reaching them again during it rather than only once, tends to carry more weight than timing a single push.

That holds regardless of whether the next round's dates match July 13 through August 19 exactly. A ballot pulled for fake or automated activity can be disqualified outright, and running four editions already does not buy Best of the 'Burg any exemption from that. River City Newspapers alone certifies who wins once its own tally closes; a supporter's job stops at building honest momentum before then. Is buying votes legal spells out where genuine reader outreach stops and paid manipulation starts, and award-vote campaign planning covers this exact readers'-choice shape in more depth.