Who should be The Star Press East Central Indiana Preseason Softball Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Star Press preseason softball poll is and who runs it

This reader poll from The Star Press East Central Indiana asks which high school softball player in East Central Indiana deserves the preseason player of the year honor. The publication posts its ballot on Crowdsignal, the survey platform that serves ballots at poll.fm. The voting link for the current edition is https://poll.fm/16804401.

Three details define the format. It is a softball ballot, not a general athlete poll, so every nominee plays the same sport. It is a preseason ballot, meaning it runs before the spring schedule gets under way rather than rewarding a completed season. And it is a public-vote contest: the readers, not a panel of sportswriters, decide the result.

The ballot's answer list pairs players with schools across the coverage area, including Wes-Del, Cowan, Delta, Shenandoah, Monroe Central, Yorktown, Daleville and Jay County. Individual nominees are not named on this reference page because they are high school students; the live ballot carries the full roster of answers.

The dated record: editions, the March window and what is unpublished

Two edition years are attached to this program: 2022 and 2026. That span shows a ballot that has run across separate cycles rather than as a single continuous event, and the recurrence data marks it annual, with 2027 the next expected year. The current ballot page carries a Poll Closed label, so voting in the 2026 edition has ended.

The confirmed window falls in March. That month-level timing comes from the ballot series itself; the publication has never put a day-level opening or closing date in print for the 2026 poll, nor a nomination round ahead of voting, so confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Other facts are absent from the published page too. The Star Press has not posted a rule on repeat submissions, an eligibility statement or a category breakdown, which fits a ballot built as a single question with a single answer list rather than a multi-category contest. Platform round dates are likewise unpublished. None of this is unusual for a poll.fm ballot, but it does mean the live page remains the deciding word on the rules that apply to any given edition.

How a supporter votes on this ballot today

The voting process takes a minute. A supporter loads the ballot at https://poll.fm/16804401, reads the question, and picks a nominee from the answer list. Each answer pairs a player with her school, so scanning by school is the fastest route to a name. After selecting an answer, the supporter submits the choice and Crowdsignal logs it. No account, login or payment appears on the ballot page.

Because the current poll is closed, a visitor today sees the result state rather than an active form. When the next edition posts, the same pattern applies: the publication promotes the new poll and a fresh link takes over. Whether the 2027 ballot reuses this exact address or draws a new poll.fm number is not published, so follow The Star Press East Central Indiana's own promotion when the preseason approaches.

What cannot be verified in advance is how often the platform allows repeat voting. Crowdsignal offers settings the host can toggle, and The Star Press has not stated its setting publicly. The practical position is to vote as the ballot permits and stop there, since the organizer's configuration governs the count, not any assumption a supporter brings to the page.

How this ballot sits beside its Indiana siblings

This poll belongs to a wider Indiana family of reader-voted sports honors, and the differences matter. The Bloomington Herald-Times Athlete of the Week runs on a weekly rhythm across all sports, while this ballot is a single preseason question confined to softball. The Evansville Courier & Press Football Player of the Year, together with the Indiana SI Football 3A Player of the Year and the Indiana SI Football 4A Player of the Year, honors football, a fall sport, so its window lands in a different part of the calendar entirely.

The Indiana High School Football Player of the Week and the Indiana SI Boys Basketball Player of the Year round out the set. What separates this program is scope: it is a publication's own market poll, tied to The Star Press's East Central Indiana coverage area, rather than a statewide ranking. A supporter comparing ballots should read each program's page, since each carries its own organizer, platform and rules.

Strengthening support in a short preseason window

Support in a preseason poll works differently from a season-long award, because the window is short and lands before games give players a public platform. The practical moves are local: the schools on the ballot, including Wes-Del, Cowan, Delta, Shenandoah, Monroe Central, Yorktown, Daleville and Jay County, have communities that can share the poll link directly, and the publication's own promotion of the ballot is the signal to watch for. A supporter who wants a broader playbook can read how to get more votes online, which covers outreach that works on reader polls of this kind. The organizer's rules always govern; The Star Press has posted no statement about outside help, so the safe assumption is that support must come from real readers using the ballot as intended.