Madison County poll: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Madison County poll is and who runs it

Unlike Best of Des Moines (CITYVIEW) and the Business Record's Best of Des Moines, which answer to big-city newsrooms, the Madison County poll belongs to Winterset Living magazine, one of the locally owned lifestyle titles in the Iowa Living Magazines family. The publisher's own masthead describes "a family of locally owned lifestyle publications focusing on the people, places and events of the communities we serve," and its network navigation runs from Adel, Altoona, Ankeny and Bondurant through Clive, Grimes, Indianola, Johnston, Jordan Creek, North Polk, Norwalk, Urbandale and Waukee to Winterset. Winterset Living is the title whose edition serves Madison County, and the Residents' Choice Poll is the ballot it puts in front of local readers.

Winterset Living hosts this ballot where it already publishes, which is the first thing that separates it from several Iowa siblings. Cedar Rapids CommunityVotes, for instance, runs on a dedicated voting platform of its own, while here the invitation, the form and the surrounding coverage all sit together on the magazine's Madison County page at iowalivingmagazines.com. This ballot fits the best-of vertical, and its audience is the county's residents rather than a statewide or metro-wide readership, so every vote counted is a vote cast by someone who lives in the market the magazine serves.

The dated record for the Madison County poll

Two edition years sit behind the current ballot: the poll ran in 2025 and is running again in 2026. The organizer's invitation for the earlier cycle reads, "Make your voice be heard and cast your votes in the 2025 Madison County Residents' Choice Poll." A 2022 Winterset August print edition carries the same call, so the series' known history reaches back past the recent online years.

The live cycle's dates are printed plainly on the ballot page: "Polls open August 5, 2026. Deadline to vote is October 2, 2026." That places the ballot across late summer and into the fall, a longer stretch than most single-week readership polls offer.

The one category figure that can be pinned to a printed source is 42: the 2022 form numbered its lines from Favorite Madison Co. Preschool through Favorite Madison Co. Facility. Whether the 2026 ballot repeats that exact lineup is not republished on the poll page.

The organizer does not print a round structure for the online ballot either, so whether the 2026 cycle adds a nomination stage before voting, or simply runs as one open stretch between the printed dates, is something to confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Everything else a reader might want, from the current category list to the per-supporter instructions, sits on the ballot itself rather than in any summary, which is why the page is worth reading directly before voting.

How a supporter votes in the Madison County poll

Each line of the printed form names a county-themed category, such as Favorite Madison Co. Preschool or Favorite Madison Co. Facility, and leaves a blank for the reader's own choice, which is why the invitation speaks of casting votes for favorites rather than choosing among named nominees. On the live page, a VOTE HERE link takes the reader from the magazine's Madison County content into the ballot itself.

The organizer's instruction on the form is "One vote per resident, please." That single line is the whole published vote rule for this ballot: no separate daily-return system is described, no login requirement is mentioned and no tiered membership for voters exists on the form. Anyone backing a local business, school or facility fills in that name once, and the ballot treats each resident's submission the same way.

Because the ballot is fill-in rather than multiple choice, spelling matters. The name a supporter writes is the name the organizer counts, so a business that campaigns for votes benefits from telling supporters exactly how its name should appear on the line. The deadline printed for the current cycle is October 2, 2026, after which the form closes until the next edition.

Where this ballot sits among its Iowa siblings

Madison County's ballot shares Iowa's fall ballot season with six sibling programs, yet it looks after its own market under a publisher none of the others share. The Best of Des Moines (CITYVIEW) and the Best of Des Moines (Business Record) compete for the same metro audience from two rival newsrooms. East of the metro, Cedar Rapids CommunityVotes runs a nominate-then-vote model on its own platform, while the Best of Cedar Rapids (The Gazette) keeps that market's ballot inside a daily newspaper's brand. The Best of the Corridor serves the Corridor business community, and the AHBA Parade of Homes is a builders' showcase rather than a readers' poll.

What separates the Madison County poll from all of them is host and audience: one county, one locally owned magazine, and a ballot hosted where the magazine already publishes. Nothing ties it to the metro ballots or the Corridor programs, and a vote cast here counts only for this county's Residents' Choice results. A reader who lands on the magazine's page is never asked to pick between overlapping publisher brands, which is not true of every Iowa market.

Building real support under this ballot's rules

Support in this ballot has to come from many individual residents, because the organizer's form asks for one vote per resident. That shapes what a campaign for a local business or facility looks like: a list of real people who will each fill in the line once, with the business name spelled the way it should be counted. The organizer prints no guidance on outside help alongside the ballot, so general tactics for community ballots, from reminders to timing, are covered separately in this site's guide on getting more votes online. For readers weighing paid support in award-style ballots, the award votes overview lays out the general background without repeating this ballot's own rules.