Jersey Sports Zone JSZ Touchdown Pass of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the JSZ Touchdown Pass of the Year, and who runs it?

Jersey Sports Zone, known to New Jersey high school football followers simply as JSZ, puts one seasonal question to its audience once the fall schedule winds down: which touchdown pass deserves to be called the pass of the year. The 2025 ballot carried the masthead "Who is your vote for JSZ's 2025 Touchdown Pass of the Year" and ran on Crowdsignal's poll.fm infrastructure at https://poll.fm/16365104, closing with a "(Poll Closed)" tag once the deadline passed.

The format is narrow by design. Where most New Jersey reader ballots scatter attention across dozens of businesses and services, this one concentrates on a single highlight-reel play. Each nominee represents one program: the 2025 slate drew entries from Bergen Catholic, St. Peter's Prep, Cedar Creek, Princeton, Holmdel, Bayonee and Burlington City, with additional options listed beneath them on the form.

Which editions have run, and when does the window open and close?

Two editions are on file, 2024 and 2025, and both were anchored to December. The 2025 deadline was set in plain terms by JSZ's companion announcement: "Polls close on Saturday 12/13 at noon!" The ballot page itself carried the closed marker when the cutoff passed.

The 2025 outcome

When voting ended, the published tally showed the Bergen Catholic entry on top at 41% on 780 votes, with the St. Peter's Prep entry next at 29%. Shares for the remaining nominees were not broken out in that tally.

What the organizer leaves unpublished

No advance calendar announces the opening day of a coming cycle, the ballot prints neither a per-person vote limit nor eligibility terms, and no prize description travels with the feature; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How does a supporter actually cast a vote?

Voting on the touchdown pass form takes about a minute. A supporter opens the ballot, reads down the nominee list, marks the passing play worth backing, and confirms the pick using the control beneath the nominee list. There is no fee at any stage, and the poll poses exactly one question, so no category navigation is involved anywhere.

Crowdsignal forms of this shape present the full nominee slate on a single screen. One practical detail matters for anyone planning repeat visits: the ballot prints no instructions about refreshes, devices or repeated selections, so a supporter attempting multiple picks finds no guidance either way on the form itself.

Timing is the other constraint. Because both editions on file landed in December and the 2025 cutoff arrived at midday on a Saturday, the usable window compresses into a few weeks at the end of the football season. Supporters who wait for a reminder tend to find the tag already flipped to closed.

For technique that applies to any public ballot of this kind, the votes guide covers outreach, sharing and timing in program-neutral terms.

How does this ballot compare with other New Jersey reader votes?

New Jersey's reader-vote scene leans heavily on broad best-of formats: Asbury Park Press Readers' Choice, the Community's Choice Awards run under the Best of Bergen banner, Best of Jersey Shore Contest, Jersey Bites Monmouth County Readers' Choice, and professional-service ballots such as Bergen & Morris Top Dentists. Those programs spread attention across restaurants, shore businesses, dentists and hometown favorites over long summer voting seasons.

The JSZ pass poll runs the opposite direction. Asbury Park Press Readers' Choice and Best of New Jersey work as umbrella ballots where businesses and hometown favorites compete across many categories, while this ballot carries a fixed slate of passing plays chosen for the year-end feature, so a program's task is rallying its community behind an entry that is already on the form. Its window lands in December, and its electorate arrives pre-organized: student sections, program families and local followers already rally around a school, which helps explain why the leading 2025 entry cleared 41% while the chasing pack clustered far lower.

That shape changes the strategy arithmetic. A wide best-of ballot rewards breadth of outreach across many voters; a single-play ballot rewards depth inside one motivated community. Programs weighing where a campaign fits can compare this ballot with the statewide Best of New Jersey contest and its county-level cousins before committing effort.

What can a campaign legitimately do to widen support?

The window is unforgiving. JSZ's 2025 deadline arrived at noon on Saturday 12/13, so a campaign that waits for the final week forfeits days it cannot recover. Begin the moment the December ballot surfaces in the outlet's plays of the year coverage, while the nominee list is still fresh in followers' feeds.

Work the constituency the ballot naturally has. Team social accounts, class group chats, booster conversations and alumni circles convert fastest, because each nominee is already somebody's favorite highlight. Every entry arrives with a ready-made audience, whether that is a Bergen Catholic student section or a Burlington City town following, so the ask should travel through those existing channels rather than cold outreach. A direct link to the poll.fm form, one clear ask, and a reminder before the midday Saturday close does more than any late scramble.

Where outside help is concerned, JSZ publishes no policy statement about paid or outsourced voting on the ballot itself, so expectations should stay grounded whichever route a campaign takes; no outside service can promise an outcome on a poll the organizer tallies itself. Award-style ballots and how vendors approach them are described plainly on the award votes reference, which is the right starting point before any money changes hands.