Health & Life Bergen Readers' Choice: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Bergen Readers' Choice and who runs it?

Bergen Readers' Choice is the best-of ballot that Health & Life Magazines stages for readers across Bergen County, New Jersey. The title sits inside a wider lifestyle-publishing operation: the voting page carries the copyright of Wainscot Media, and the site's navigation groups Bergen Magazine with Monmouth Magazine and Morris & Essex Magazine. Within that family, Bergen Health & Life is the edition whose audience fills in the readers' choice form each winter. Two details frame any campaign here. First, the ballot lives on healthandlifemags.com itself, so a supporter never leaves the publisher's property to vote. Second, the payoff is partly print: results land in the September issue of Bergen magazine, which gives a winning business a credential that outlasts the web. The same page even recruits new readers, offering a free subscription to Bergen magazine to Bergen County residents.

Item	Detail
Organizer	Health & Life Magazines
Publishing group	Wainscot Magazines
Market	Bergen County, New Jersey
Format	Best-of readers' choice ballot
Ballot host	healthandlifemags.com, the organizer's own site
Current ballot	/bergen-readers-choice-2026-voting/
Cost to vote	Free
Results channel	September issue of Bergen magazine

Why the print tie-in matters

A badge that exists only on a website fades quickly; a spread in a mailed magazine keeps reaching households long after the vote closes. For Bergen businesses whose customers live in the county, that September appearance is the strongest single payoff the ballot offers.

Which editions are confirmed and when does voting happen?

Three editions of the Bergen Readers' Choice stand on published evidence: 2022, 2025 and 2026. The 2022 round ran under the address healthandlifemags.com/votereaderschoice2022/, a path that still resolves, while the current cycle uses a dedicated page at /bergen-readers-choice-2026-voting/. That continuity marks the program as a recurring fixture of the magazine's calendar rather than a single experiment. Timing follows a winter rhythm. The 2026 ballot's voting period sat inside December 2025, and the page now carries a plain notice: Bergen Readers' Choice 2026 voting is now closed. From there the publisher hands off to print, promising results in the September issue of Bergen magazine. Older still is the franchise itself, because a Readers' Choice issue of Bergen Health & Life bore a September 2020 cover, meaning the format predated the years listed above. What the publisher has not printed is equally concrete. Health & Life Magazines leaves the day-level open and close dates, the category roster and any per-reader voting rule off the ballot; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Round	Voting window	Outcome
2022	Not published	Ballot path /votereaderschoice2022/ remains reachable
2026	December 2025	Closed; results due in the September issue
Next cycle	Not yet announced	Watch the magazine site from autumn onward

How does a supporter vote in the Bergen Readers' Choice today?

The mechanics are deliberately plain. A supporter opens the Bergen Readers' Choice voting page on healthandlifemags.com, reads the category lineup as printed for that season, marks a selection wherever they hold an opinion, and submits the form. Nothing on the page describes an account wall, a fee or a download; participation starts and finishes in the browser. The layout follows the magazine's normal article templates, so a phone copes as comfortably as a desktop. Because the 2026 vote is marked closed, that sequence describes the shape of the next round more than a live action right now. When the publisher posts the following ballot, the same four movements apply, and the close date printed on that page becomes the deadline that matters.

If you arrive late

Arriving after the close means waiting rather than improvising: the page funnels everything toward the September print reveal, and it shows no write-in channel once voting stops. Supporters who want a favourite business noticed should aim for the opening days of the window instead of the final stretch. Our guide to earning more votes online walks through that early-push logic in detail.

How does this ballot compare with other New Jersey readers' choice programs?

New Jersey carries a crowded field of public-vote honors, and Bergen Readers' Choice holds a specific lane inside it. Its nearest relation is Bergen & Morris Top Dentists, produced by the same publisher for a narrower professional niche. Beyond the Wainscot stable, county voters also meet the Best of Bergen Community's Choice Awards, a broader community prize aimed at much the same audience.

Program	Scope	Contrast with this ballot
Bergen & Morris Top Dentists	Dental niche, same publisher
Best of Bergen Community's Choice Awards	County-wide community prize
Asbury Park Press Readers' Choice	Statewide, newsroom brand
Best of New Jersey	Whole-state field
Best of Jersey Shore Contest	Shore communities
Jersey Bites Monmouth County Readers' Choice	Food focus, Monmouth County

Against that set, Bergen Readers' Choice differs in three ways: a single-county footprint, a lifestyle-magazine host rather than a newspaper, and results delivered in a printed September issue. A Bergen business weighing where a readers' choice push belongs should let those differences decide between this ballot and its larger rivals, including the Press-run poll and the Monmouth food ballot.

How can a Bergen business strengthen its readers' choice standing?

Strengthening a standing here starts with the calendar, because the whole campaign compresses into a December stretch. A business that lines up customer messaging before the ballot opens, then reminds buyers during the voting days, gathers far more support than one that reacts after a friend mentions the form. The print reward stretches that effort further, since a September appearance in Bergen magazine keeps selling long after the online vote ends. On outside help, the picture is straightforward but unfinished. Paid vote services exist for readers' choice formats, and the award-votes service page outlines how ordering works; what Health & Life Magazines permits for this specific ballot is not printed beside the form, so read its terms before committing. No purchase decides the outcome on its own, and no service can promise a result; the vote still has to be won.