Readerspoll 08: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Clarkesworld Readers' Poll is and who runs it

Readerspoll 08 is the ballot page for Clarkesworld Magazine's Readers' Poll, an annual exercise in which the magazine asks its own readers to name the stories and cover art they liked most from the prior year. Clarkesworld is a science fiction and fantasy magazine published in New Jersey by Wyrm Publishing, and the poll lives on the magazine's own website, with no outside balloting company involved. That single fact shapes everything about how the vote works: the ballot, the rules and the results all answer to one publisher.

The page carrying the vote sits at clarkesworldmagazine.com/readerspoll_08/ and is titled "2008 Readers' Poll", a name that points back to the first edition of the series. The magazine's own description of the exercise is straightforward: each year it provides readers with the opportunity to let the editors know which of its stories and cover art were their favorites from the prior year. This is a best-of format, but the field being ranked is the magazine's own output, not local businesses or local services.

Facts at a glance

Because Clarkesworld is both the organizer and the host, a supporter looking for the rules has exactly one place to look: the magazine's own pages. Nothing about this poll is outsourced, and no platform intermediary sits between the reader and the count.

The dated record: editions, the February window and what is unpublished

The poll's history is long for a reader-voted program. The first edition covered the year 2008 and appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine in February 2009, with the results following in March 2009. The confirmed edition years after that run across 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025, and the organizer describes the poll in its own words as an annual opportunity: "Each year, we provide Clarkesworld readers with the opportunity to let us know which of our stories and cover art were their favorites from the prior year."

The voting window falls in February. The most precisely dated cycle is 2025, when voting closed on February 15 at 11:00 p.m. Before the ballot opens, a nomination round runs in January: Clarkesworld has described holding a two-day nomination period for the Readers' Poll in January, in which readers put forward the works that go on the ballot. So the cycle reads nomination first, then a February vote.

Two things the organizer has not printed on the ballot page matter to anyone planning around this poll. The exact daily opening and closing times for the current cycle are not published in advance; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. And no promotional round schedule exists for this market, because the poll is not carried on any outside balloting platform that publishes one. The February month itself is the reliable anchor; the exact days shift with each edition.

How a supporter votes on the Clarkesworld ballot today

Voting is deliberately plain. A supporter opens clarkesworldmagazine.com/readerspoll_08/ during the February window, reads the nominees in each section of the poll, marks a favorite where they have one, and submits. The sections cover the magazine's prior year of fiction and cover art, and the headings printed on the page include phrases such as Best Story, Best Science Fiction of the Year, Best Editor Short Form and Best Art Director. Those headings are what the page itself carries; the organizer has not published a statement that the list is exhaustive, so the live ballot is the complete picture.

The poll page does not state that a reader account is required, and it prints no per-reader vote limit and no eligibility rule. Those silences are the organizer's, not ours to fill: whatever the live form asks of a voter in a given cycle, from sign-in to submission limits, is the rule that governs that cycle. A supporter who wants certainty on any of those points should read the ballot itself before planning a push.

Timing is the practical constraint. The 2025 cycle closed on February 15 at 11:00 p.m., which means the usable voting window inside February is roughly half a month, and the January nomination round decides the ballot before any of it. A supporter who waits until late in the month is working against a deadline that has already passed in every cycle we can date.

How this ballot sits beside its New Jersey neighbours

Every other New Jersey program covered on this site is a local best-of contest in the familiar retail sense. The Asbury Park Press Readers' Choice asks a newspaper's audience to rank local businesses. The Bergen & Morris Top Dentists list and the Best of Bergen Community's Choice Awards do the same for health care and county services. The Best of Jersey Shore Contest, Best of New Jersey and the Jersey Bites Monmouth County Readers' Choice round out the set, each run by a different publisher on a different calendar.

Clarkesworld's poll is the odd one out on three axes. First, the field is not businesses but the magazine's own stories, covers and editors. Second, the host is the organizer itself, with no platform company in the middle, while most of the programs above run on outside contest platforms. Third, the voting base is a defined readership, a science fiction and fantasy audience, rather than a general local public, which changes who a supporter can realistically reach.

The practical consequence for anyone campaigning is that tactics borrowed from a business readers' contest transfer poorly. Reaching Clarkesworld's readers means reaching people who already read the magazine, and the short February window rewards early, direct asks over broad local campaigning.

Strengthening support within the poll's own rules

The realistic path to more support in this poll runs through Clarkesworld's existing audience. The ballot is open for a compressed February stretch, closing mid-month in the cycle we can date, so the first move is to ask readers to vote as soon as the ballot goes live rather than in the final days. A nomination round in January precedes the vote, which means a work must clear that stage before any February campaign matters at all.

Clarkesworld has not printed a policy on outside help or organized voting on its poll page, so no organizer rule constrains or endorses it here; the live ballot is the authority each cycle. What the magazine's own framing does make clear is that the poll exists to let readers name their favorites, which is why asks aimed at genuine readers, in reader spaces where the magazine is already discussed, fit the format best. Our guide to getting more votes online covers those outreach methods in detail, and award contest voting has its own page for readers weighing paid support in judged and voted awards.