Herald-Palladium Readers' Choice: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Herald-Palladium Readers' Choice is and who stands behind it

The Herald-Palladium Readers' Choice is a best-of favorites ballot for Southwest Michigan, run by The Herald-Palladium, the regional newspaper behind heraldpalladium.com. Its premise is broad on purpose: rather than honoring a single sport, industry or age group, the paper asks readers to name the people and places they rate highest around St. Joseph and the rest of the region. The paper's own promotion puts it plainly: "Vote for your favorite people and places in Southwest Michigan today!"

Voting happens online, on a ballot page the paper hosts under its own address at heraldpalladium.secondstreetapp.com. There is no print-in form and no entry fee; the slate reads as a general favorites roundup rather than a single-industry honor roll, and taking part is open to whoever cares about the market The Herald-Palladium serves.

Where the ballot lives

The working address for the current round is https://heraldpalladium.secondstreetapp.com/2025-Herald-Palladium-Readers-Choice/. Bookmarking it while the round is open is the simplest way back, because the paper posts each edition at its own dated address.

When does the Herald-Palladium Readers' Choice vote, and what does its history show?

The 2025 voting round opened September 22 and accepted picks through October 3rd, in the paper's own words: "IT'S TIME TO VOTE! Tell us your favorite things to see and do in Southwest Michigan through October 3rd." Those late-September and early-October weeks are the period that matters; anything before the opening or after the close sits outside the round entirely.

The year list behind the program

Editions have run in 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Nothing in that list covers 2020, so the schedule shows a pause year between 2019 and 2021 before the run resumed and carried on annually through 2025.

Details that stay open: the paper has attached no printed category lineup and no stated vote-limit or eligibility terms to its promotion, so treat both as unsettled until you are looking at the ballot itself; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How does a supporter cast a ballot in the Herald-Palladium Readers' Choice?

Casting a ballot is deliberately plain. You open the official Herald-Palladium Readers' Choice page on heraldpalladium.secondstreetapp.com, look over the categories presented, and mark a favorite in each field that matters to you. Favorites mean exactly what the promotion says: people and places around Southwest Michigan, from local figures to the spots you recommend to friends. When your selections are in, you send the ballot through the page itself.

Pacing across the round

The window stretches from late September into early October, so there is room to think over choices, but leaving submissions to the final hours invites trouble if traffic or a connection stalls. Because the printed rules do not set out a return schedule, let the ballot page guide how often you may come back.

Nothing about the flow requires payment, and the paper frames the exercise as a community favorites poll rather than a judged competition. For broader background on strengthening a public-ballot campaign, the guide to earning more votes online covers tactics that transfer to reader ballots of this kind.

Where does this ballot fit among Michigan's readers-choice contests?

Michigan sustains a crowded field of reader-voted honors, and this ballot occupies a specific lane in it. Programs elsewhere in the state chase larger or differently shaped audiences: Best of Northern Michigan speaks to the northern resort region, while Detroit Community Choice Awards, Detroit News Readers' Choice, DN Readers Choice Awards and Grand Rapids Magazine Best of GR concentrate on their own metros, and the Detroit Music Awards honor a music scene rather than a general favorites slate. The Herald-Palladium Readers' Choice stays local to Southwest Michigan, where the paper itself is the household habit.

The closest relative is not on that list at all: The Herald-Palladium also runs South Haven Best Of, a separate favorites ballot devoted to that community, with its own address on the same balloting host for the 2025 and 2024 rounds. Supporters split between St. Joseph and South Haven can therefore appear on both ballots without either confusing the other.

To see how the markets differ side by side, browse the full Michigan ballot directory.

How can a campaign build support during the Herald-Palladium voting round?

Because outcomes turn on support, the useful work during the round is simple and local: ask the customers, patients and regulars who already favor you to fill out the ballot, post the Herald-Palladium Readers' Choice link while voting is open, and remind people before the October 3rd close. Word of mouth moves fast in a market the size of Southwest Michigan, and a business that asks plainly usually beats a business that assumes.

The Herald-Palladium pairs no published guidance about outside help with its ballot, so keep any campaign inside whatever the live terms state. Award-style public ballots like this one reward organized outreach; the award-votes overview sets out how ballots of this shape work and what the surrounding services offer, without promising any particular result.