WCBI Viewers' Choice Awards: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the WCBI Viewers' Choice Awards is and who runs it

The Viewers' Choice Awards is the best-of program run by WCBI TV, a television station based in Columbus, Mississippi. The ballot gives the station's viewing audience a way to name favorite local businesses across an unpublished set of categories, which places it in the readers-choice or best-of vertical rather than in sweepstakes or photo galleries.

The vote itself is hosted on Second Street, the balloting platform whose app addresses appear at wcbi.secondstreetapp.com. WCBI keeps several other promotions on the same account, including a Teacher of the Month gallery for the 2026-2027 school year and a series of cash sweepstakes, but the Viewers' Choice Awards is the station's flagship public vote. The 2026 edition's own address is wcbi.secondstreetapp.com/Viewers-Choice-Awards-2026, and that is the link supporters use to reach the ballot.

Geographically the program is anchored on Columbus, in northeast Mississippi, where the station's headquarters sit at 201 5th Street South. WCBI is registered as a Mississippi television station and carries no other state under its name, so the ballot's audience is the station's own broadcast area rather than the whole state.

The dated timeline: editions, the 2026 window, and what is not published

Six editions of the Viewers' Choice Awards are confirmed. The history reaches back to 2021, 2022 and 2023 on the early side, then continues through 2024, 2025 and 2026. Each edition lives at its own Second Street address, so the 2025 ballot sits at Viewers-Choice-Awards-2025, the 2024 ballot at Viewers-Choice-Awards-2024, and so on back to 2021. That structure makes the program's history easy to check directly, address by address, rather than relying on a summary assembled somewhere else.

Of the six cycles, the 2026 edition carries the fullest dates. The ballot opened on December 31, 2025 and closed on May 1, 2026, a window of roughly four months that spans the new year. It ran as a NominationAndVotingBallot, meaning nomination and voting share one form rather than running as separate phases on separate pages. The status of that edition is now closed, so votes submitted after May 1, 2026 did not count.

What the station has not published, on any of the reference material available for this program, is the category roster for the 2026 ballot. WCBI also does not spell out eligibility terms or disqualification criteria in the material at hand. Because the ballot is built fresh each year, the safest reading is that the category list can shift between editions; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How a supporter votes on the 2026 ballot today

The mechanic on the Viewers' Choice Awards ballot is a daily return, and the instructions are printed on the ballot itself. WCBI's ballot tells supporters: "On future visits, log in to the ballot using the 'Already Entered' function and vote again up to once a day." That single line carries three facts a supporter needs: returning requires logging in, the login is the Already Entered function rather than a fresh entry, and the allowed frequency is once per day.

For a first-time supporter the sequence runs the other way. You open the ballot, pick your categories, and complete the initial entry, which establishes the identity the Already Entered function will later recognize. Because the ballot is a NominationAndVotingBallot, the same form handles nominating a business that is not yet listed and voting for one that is. A supporter who wants a specific Columbus business on the ballot may need to nominate it there first, before it can collect votes from anyone else.

Timing matters as much as frequency. The 2026 window closed on May 1, 2026, so the once-a-day mechanic only applied while the ballot was open. Anyone reading this between editions should treat the daily rule as the pattern for the next edition rather than an open invitation, and should wait for WCBI to publish the new ballot before trying to vote.

How this ballot sits beside its Mississippi neighbours

Mississippi readers can choose among many public-vote best-of programs, and the Viewers' Choice Awards occupies a distinct corner of that field as a television station's ballot rather than a newspaper's. The nearest structural cousin is the WXXV Viewer's Choice Awards, run by the Gulf coast station WXXV, which shares the viewers-choice format and the Second Street style of hosting. The two answer to different stations in different markets, so votes cast on one never count toward the other.

The newspaper-run programs cover different ground entirely. The Daily Journal Readers Choice in Tupelo serves northeast Mississippi from a print and digital newsroom, the Best of the Best Jackson ballot belongs to the Clarion Ledger in the capital, and the Best of Oxford program runs through the Oxford Eagle. Statewide options include Best of Mississippi and the Best of Coastal Mississippi ballot on the Gulf.

What separates the WCBI program is its host and its anchor city. Columbus is the station's home, the ballot has run under the same Second Street account since 2021, and the station promotes it alongside its own broadcast content rather than in a newspaper's contest section. A business deciding where to campaign should pick the ballot its customers actually see, and for WCBI's viewing area that is this one.

Strengthening support in the Viewers' Choice Awards

Because the ballot allows each logged-in supporter to vote again up to once a day, the highest-yield move for a Columbus business is a daily reminder, not a single announcement. A counter at the register, a pinned post with the ballot link, and a recurring email nudge all convert occasional customers into daily voters across the four-month window.

WCBI has not published a policy statement on outside help or organized vote drives in the material available here, which makes the ballot's own terms the deciding reference; the live rules page is where the station would state any limit on coordinated voting. Keep any push personal and genuine: ask real customers, thank them publicly, and never misrepresent where votes came from. For a plain explanation of the options and the risks, see our votes guide, and treat every claim about guaranteed outcomes with the skepticism it deserves. No outside method, paid or free, substitutes for the daily-return habit this ballot is built around.