Joe Orthodontics High School Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Joe Orthodontics Athlete of the Week poll is

Under the title Joe Orthodontics High School Athlete of the Week, this weekly program recognizes standout high school student-athletes in California's High Desert by public vote. Joe Orthodontics is the sponsor whose name sits in the program title, and the balloting runs on Crowdsignal, the platform behind poll.fm. The current ballot lives at poll.fm/17096706, which serves the latest poll in the weekly series rather than a permanently open contest.

Each week the ballot lists a short slate of high school athlete nominees and asks supporters to pick a favorite. The organizer's published rule is unusually open: supporters can vote for their favorite athletes as often as they'd like. The window ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night, and the finished poll remains visible with its final tally.

The vertical is sport, the mechanic is public-vote, and the market is the High Desert region of California. Because the program names high school students, this page describes nominees only by school and week and never by name, which is the right way to write about minor athletes on a public ballot.

The dated record: editions, seasons and the weekly window

This program has two confirmed edition years, 2023 and 2026. The 2026 season is documented as a weekly run, with a series of ballots dated from March through June of that year, and the poll.fm address currently serves the most recent of those weekly polls. A further season is expected in 2027, though the calendar of that future run has not been laid out anywhere.

Within each week the timing is explicit on the ballot page itself: the round ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night. The day each new weekly ballot opens is not printed as a fixed schedule, so a supporter following the series checks the live page early in the week rather than relying on a published calendar.

Nominations run ahead of each ballot: they must be received by Sunday morning following that week's games, which puts the nomination cut-off early in the week and the vote close midweek. What the organizer has not printed anywhere is the roster of award categories the series uses beyond the weekly athlete recognition, so confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The most recent closed ballot is instructive about scale. It drew 1,769 total votes across its three nominees, and the result stayed visible after the finish with the percentage each nominee earned displayed beside the running count. That mix of a short published cut-off and an unpublished opening time shapes how anyone should plan a week of support.

How a supporter votes this week

Voting takes very little effort. A supporter brings up poll.fm/17096706, reads the nominee list for the current week, selects a favorite and submits. Because the organizer allows voting as often as you'd like, the practical play is repetition: a committed supporter returns to the page several times before the Wednesday 11:59 p.m. close, and each pass adds to the nominee's total.

There is no login requirement stated on the ballot page, and no payment is involved in casting a vote. The poll presents its nominees with their live percentages and running totals, so a supporter can see exactly where their favorite stands while the window is open. When the round finishes, the page flips to a closed state and the final standings freeze.

For a supporter whose favorite is not yet on the ballot, the path runs through nomination. Submissions must be received by Sunday morning following that week's games, so the nomination window sits between the weekend's fixtures and the midweek vote. An athlete nominated in time enters consideration for that week's slate of names.

The weekly rhythm means a loss this week is not final. The series produces a fresh ballot through the season, and an athlete who misses the cut or falls short one week can appear again in a later poll, with the vote count starting over from zero each time.

How this poll sits among California's athlete of the week ballots

California carries a cluster of weekly high school sports polls, and this one is distinct in two ways. First, the sponsor is a local business, Joe Orthodontics, rather than a newsroom, so the program's identity is tied to a community brand. Second, the published vote rule is unlimited voting, where many peer ballots cap or moderate repeat votes, which changes what an effective week of support looks like.

The sibling programs on this site cover separate sports and separate publishers, each with its own ballot. The California High School Football Player of the Week and the California High School Boys Basketball Player of the Week follow the football and boys basketball seasons, while the California High School Girls Basketball Athlete of the Week and the California High School Softball Player of the Week cover girls basketball and softball.

Two others round out the set: the California High School Baseball Player of the Week for spring diamonds, and the Fresno Bee Athlete of the Week, a newspaper-run ballot from a different part of the state. None of these share the Joe Orthodontics ballot's sponsor or its vote-as-often-as-you-like rule.

For a High Desert family, this poll is the nearest fit, because its nominees are drawn from area high schools and its weekly cycle matches the local schedule. A supporter with athletes in several sports may find the same student recognized across more than one of these ballots over a school year.

Strengthening support within this ballot's rules

This ballot rewards persistence more than most, because the organizer itself permits voting as often as you'd like. The legitimate path is therefore volume plus people: repeat your own visits through the week, then recruit teammates, classmates, family and the school's fan base to vote from their own devices before the Wednesday 11:59 p.m. deadline. A team group chat with a nightly reminder does more than any single burst of votes on Tuesday night.

Timing matters too. Nominations close Sunday morning after that week's games, so make sure your athlete is on the slate before spending effort on votes. Then spread the push across the whole window rather than the final hours, when a slow poll page is likeliest.

The organizer publishes no statement banning outside voting help on the ballot page, and it sets no daily limit, but it does control the ballot outright and can act on abuse of its own poll. Anything automated or deceptive puts a student's recognition at risk for no reason, because the rules already allow unlimited human votes. For a grounded look at the wider market, see our votes guide, and for pricing context the service page explains what paid support generally involves.