NorthJersey.com Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the NorthJersey.com Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year vote?

The North Jersey Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year ballot is a seasonal fan vote in which readers of NorthJersey.com answer a single question: who was the year's top boys high school distance runner in the outlet's coverage area?

The organizer is NorthJersey.com, the publication behind The Record and part of USA TODAY Network New Jersey. The vote grows out of the newsroom's high school sports desk rather than a general readers' choice franchise, and the audience it speaks to is the running community spread across the North Jersey communities the paper covers. Balloting runs through Crowdsignal, whose poll.fm domain hosts the form at https://poll.fm/15632775, the address the outlet links for the programme. The form is open to the public: a reader who opens the page can back a nominee without paying anything or registering through the newsroom.

The 2025 slate pulled nominees from programs connected with Hackensack, Ridgewood, Hasbrouck Heights, Bergenfield and Old Tappan, a spread that shows the catchment reaches across several towns rather than a single district. Because the fan poll is layered on top of the newsroom's own post-season honors coverage, backing a nominee here supplements that coverage instead of substituting for it.

When does the North Jersey boys cross country runner of the year ballot run?

Confirmed cycles cover 2023, 2024 and 2025, three consecutive Junes, which makes the programme a recurring piece of the newsroom's calendar.

The voting window falls in June, landing just as the spring track season wraps and the newsroom builds out its post-season honors coverage. The 2025 ballot's title carries a closed marker, so that cycle's voting has finished and the posted figures are final.

Inside the 2025 tally, the leading nominee finished at 53%, the nearest challenger at 34%, and another option at 6%, a spread at the top that shows the front of the slate pulled well clear of the field.

The ballot does not print the day its window opens, the day it shuts, or any wording on repeat voting and eligibility; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. No category roster appears beside the nominee slate either, since the whole form is built around the runner-of-the-year question alone.

How does a supporter cast a vote in the boys cross country poll?

Casting a vote on a live ballot

On a live cycle the sequence is short. A supporter opens the poll.fm ballot linked from NorthJersey.com's high school sports coverage, reads a slate in which each runner's name sits beside his school program, marks the intended choice, and presses the submit control under the list. No account creation is presented before the nominees, and no payment step interrupts the form.

What the page leaves unstated

The form prints nothing on how frequently a supporter may come back or whether any device check applies, so anyone weighing repeated visits should study the live page for the current cycle before relying on them. Since the 2025 edition is closed, a visitor opening the address now sees the settled percentages instead of an active form; the identical steps will apply whenever the outlet posts its next June link. Handsets reach the very same form, so a supporter on a phone follows the identical path from nominee list to submission.

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

New Jersey has no shortage of reader-vote programmes, and the six related ballots listed on this page show the range. Asbury Park Press Readers' Choice sweeps a broad menu of local favorites for the Shore paper's audience, while the Best of Jersey Shore Contest and the Monmouth County food ballot run by Jersey Bites serve their own regional and dining-focused constituencies. Best of New Jersey operates at statewide scale across many business categories, and the Bergen County pair, Best of Bergen's community choice awards and Bergen & Morris Top Dentists, concentrate on local services.

Against that backdrop, the boys cross country ballot is deliberately narrow: a single sports question, a fixed nominee slate, and a June window timed to the end of the school running season. Its voters are teammates, classmates, parents and alumni of the nominated programs rather than shoppers picking a favorite dentist or diner. That focus explains why outreach for a nominee looks more like team mobilization than advertising. Readers comparing options across the state can start with the statewide ballot or the Asbury Park Press programme to see the wider format.

How can a runner's supporters build turnout in the June window?

A single-question ballot with a June window rewards speed over endurance. The nominee slate is fixed by the newsroom, so whatever campaign a runner's supporters mount is about turnout, not entry. Share the poll.fm link directly through team group chats, booster communications and the school's running networks in the opening days. Remind voters that the ballot asks for a selection, not a payment, which lowers the barrier for classmates, parents and alumni. Wider methods for public ballots, from timing the ask to reaching beyond the immediate roster, are gathered in the guide to getting more votes online, and readers weighing paid help can review how buying votes online works before deciding whether it suits this ballot.