Journal Review Best Of (Crawfordsville): How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Journal Review Best Of and who runs it?

The Journal Review Best Of Awards is a public reader vote run by the Journal Review, the newspaper that covers Crawfordsville and the surrounding Montgomery County area of Indiana. Its current ballot, titled The Best of Awards 2026, sits on the newspaper's own site at journalreview.com/bestof2026/.

The contest sits in the business and best-of category. Readers vote for favorites in the newspaper's Best of Awards, and the result is a public tally rather than a jury or panel decision. Because the newspaper runs the page itself, its own choices set the categories, timing and rules.

The site describes the newspaper as the provider of news coverage from Crawfordsville, Indiana, and the surrounding Montgomery County area. That makes the market a local one, so the favorites on the ballot are the businesses and services a local reader would know.

A reader who knows the paper mainly for its local news will find the Best of ballot sits on the same site, which keeps the vote close to the newsroom's own coverage area.

Which years of the Best Of ballot are shown?

Live ballots are shown for 2025 and 2026. The 2026 page carries The Best of Awards 2026 heading, which marks the current cycle. A 2027 ballot would follow the same annual pattern, but no date has been announced in the material behind this guide.

The table separates the shown years from the open questions. The window and the category list are on the live page, and this page is silent on carry them.

A reader should not assume the 2026 window matches the 2025 one, because the newspaper sets the dates for each year. Comparing the two headings is a quick way to see whether the format has changed between cycles.

How does a reader vote on the live Best Of page today?

A reader opens the 2026 page and reads the heading to confirm the year. The page then lists the favorites the newspaper presents for voting. A reader chooses among those listings and completes the vote the page asks for.

The sequence of screens and any sign-in step are set by the newspaper. The material behind this page is silent on describe a per-reader limit, so a reader checks the live page for any per-category cap.

Finding the favorites

The favorites appear in the category groups the newspaper chooses, so a reader should read the group label before selecting an entry. Choosing from the right group keeps each vote where the reader intended it.

A reader who wants to back a favorite in more than one group should check the live page to see whether that is allowed, since the ballot sets the rules for repeat choices.

Submitting the vote

Complete the vote the page asks for and keep the confirmation it shows. Once a vote is submitted, that confirmation is the only evidence a reader has, so a screenshot is a simple precaution. A reader who returns later should check the page again, because the category list and the window can change from one year to the next.

How does this Journal Review ballot sit beside the other Indiana listings?

The Journal Review Best Of sits beside several Indiana listings on this site. Those are Best of Indiana, CommunityVotes Bloomington, CommunityVotes Evansville, CommunityVotes Fort Wayne, the YourChoiceAwards South Bend Best Of and the Best of Elkhart County. Each has a publisher or market of its own.

This ballot is run by a newspaper that covers a smaller market, Crawfordsville and Montgomery County, while several siblings cover larger Indiana cities. The clearest difference is the market and the organizer. The Indiana state hub is at the Indiana contest hub.

A reader searching for the Crawfordsville vote by name lands on this page first. The sibling pages show the same format in other cities, so compare the live pages before assuming they share categories or dates. None of them can be used to predict the Crawfordsville categories, since each market has its own favorites.

How can a local business build support for its Best Of listing?

A local business that wants to be chosen in the Journal Review Best Of benefits most from honest outreach to the customers it already serves. Those people can be told where the 2026 page is and which category fits the service they receive. A shop or office can share the address on its own channels and let regular customers decide.

The newspaper sets the rules for every valid vote, so a business should follow the rules on the page and avoid any approach they forbid. The general method for building votes that fits a public ballot is set out in the guide on getting more votes online.

Because this is a public reader vote, steady community contact tends to matter more than a single push near the close. The category list and the window are the details most likely to change, so check the live page each year before planning outreach.