Best of Lincoln-Way Readers' Choice: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Best of Lincoln-Way Readers' Choice, and who runs it?

The Best of Lincoln-Way Readers' Choice is a readers' choice business ballot produced by The Herald-News, the newspaper headquartered in Joliet that serves Joliet and Will County in Illinois. Its subject is local commerce rather than sport, pets or pageantry: the nominees are the shops, restaurants, banks, clinics and service firms readers use week to week, and the voters are those same readers.

The 2025 ballot carried the title "Best of Lincoln-Way Readers' Choice Awards 2025" above the invitation "Vote for your favorite businesses today!" In the paper's wider promotion the program also surfaces as the Herald News Best of Lincoln-Way Readers' Choice Awards, the wording a Town Center Bank thank-you advertisement used after the 2025 round.

The vote runs on the Second Street balloting service, reached through the paper's branded address at theheraldnews.secondstreetapp.com. That makes this a publisher-run contest rather than a platform-owned one: the name, the promotion and the results stay with the newspaper, while the balloting software comes from Second Street. Taking part costs a supporter nothing, and the contest is classed as a best-of award ballot with a public-vote mechanic.

Facts at a glance

Which editions are confirmed, and when does the ballot run?

Two editions of this program are confirmed: a 2024 ballot under the same Lincoln-Way name, and the 2025 edition whose live page sits at the paper's Second Street address today. Those two cycles establish the program as an annual one, anchored to spring.

The 2025 cycle moved through two stages. Nominations came first: the paper's readers' choice site stated that nominations would be accepted until April 15th at 8:00 a.m. Voting followed. The organizer's notice set the voting period for April 20th through May 1st, while the ballot application's own round for 2025 ran from April 21 through May 11 of that year. A business that wanted a place on the ballot had to be nominated before that mid-April morning cutoff, and once voting closed the paper's marketing desk began posting result announcements.

One result announcement came from Town Center Bank, which thanked its customers "for making Town Center Bank the #1 Financial Institution (Banks/Credit Unions)" in the 2025 Herald News Best of Lincoln-Way Readers' Choice Awards.

What the printed material leaves unsettled is the shape of the ballot itself: category headings and any cap on repeat voting are simply not shown on the ballot or in the paper's promotion; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Whether a further round has opened since 2025 is answered most directly at the paper's ballot address, which carries whichever cycle is current.

How does someone actually cast a vote in this contest?

Voting happens on the ballot page itself, at the address the paper advertises while the round is open. A supporter opens the page in a browser, scrolls past the masthead, and finds the business categories laid out one after another. In 2025 the page greeted arrivals with the line "Vote for your favorite businesses today!" and placed the nominated businesses beneath each heading. Picking a nominee and submitting it is the entire act of taking part: no purchase, no membership and no ticket of any kind sits between a reader and the form.

Because the whole ballot lives at one browser address, the same sequence works on a phone as on a desktop, and arriving during the stated window is what makes a vote count. Timing is the one variable a supporter fully controls, since the round dates, not the visitor, decide when the form accepts entries.

The front end of the cycle matters just as much on the business side. A nomination stage precedes the vote, and an enterprise that misses it has no line on the ballot to defend. Getting nominated early, then rallying customers once the voting period opens, is the sequence this program's structure rewards.

What a first-time visitor sees

The masthead names the program, the greeting invites votes for favorite businesses, and the category list runs downward from there. Everything a newcomer needs sits on that single page, which is why the ballot address is the only destination worth sharing with customers.

How does this ballot sit beside its Illinois neighbours?

Illinois carries a crowded best-of field, and this program holds a particular slot within it. The companions listed alongside it here are:

• Best of Chicago (Chicago Reader), a metro-wide ballot from the city's alternative weekly.
• Sauk Valley Favorites, another publisher-run readers' choice ballot in a different Illinois market.
• CommunityVotes Peoria IL and CommunityVotes Rockford, twin city ballots run on a dedicated community-voting platform.
• BAGI Parade of Homes People's Choice, a people's choice vote attached to a parade of homes.
• Chicago Style Weddings Best Of, a ballot aimed at the wedding market.

Against that company, the Lincoln-Way ballot is defined by its publisher and its scale. It belongs to one newspaper's marketing operation, runs on that paper's own Second Street instance, and ties its spring voting period to a nomination deadline, a two-stage shape worth noting when comparing ballots.

Geography draws the boundary lines as well. The Herald-News anchors itself in Joliet and reports across Will County, so the nominees come from the communities the paper covers rather than from a statewide roster. A dentist in one Lincoln-Way suburb competes against the practice down the road, not against every practice in Illinois, and that local pairing is what separates this ballot from the metro-wide Chicago Reader program listed above it here.

Scale shapes campaigning too: a compact base of loyal regulars can move a community-sized ballot quickly, while the same effort disperses across a metropolitan electorate. That is why local mobilization, not broad reach, is the lever this program responds to.

How can a business strengthen its support during the Lincoln-Way window?

The cycle opens with nominations, so the first useful move lands before voting does: secure a place on the ballot ahead of the April 15th at 8:00 a.m. cutoff. Once the voting period arrives, the work shifts to the customers who already come through the door. A line from staff at the register, a note printed on receipts and a reminder posted on social channels all steer people toward the same destination, the paper's Second Street ballot, and repeating that push across the whole voting stretch beats a single announcement on day one.

Plan for the full advertised span rather than opening day alone: reminders landing week after week give a campaign a steadier climb than one burst of notices ever delivers, and the paper's own promotion keeps the ballot address in front of readers throughout.

Wider tactics for public votes, from scheduling reminders to watching where a campaign stands, are gathered in how to get more votes online. Outside assistance is part of this landscape too: paid vote services are a familiar feature of best-of ballots, and the ground rules around them are summarized at is buying votes legal.