The Press of Atlantic City Readers' Choice: How Voting Works & How to Win

Two counties, one shore, and a ballot that spans both

The Press of Atlantic City's Readers' Choice ballot doesn't stop at the city line. Coverage runs across Atlantic County and Cape May County, from Atlantic City's casino corridor down through the Cape May peninsula's smaller resort towns. A business in either county competes on the same ballot, hosted at pressofatlanticcity.com.

A business that only thinks of itself as an "Atlantic City" entrant may be missing that its actual competition pool stretches all the way to Cape May, a very different kind of shore town with its own distinct customer base.

Why the shore's summer swing matters more here than in a landlocked market

Atlantic and Cape May counties don't carry a flat, year-round population the way an inland metro does. Summer brings a wave of seasonal residents and tourists that can dwarf the off-season base, particularly in towns like Ocean City, Ventnor City, and Cape May itself. A readers' poll that runs during that window reaches a fundamentally different, larger pool than one that closes in the dead of winter.

What that means for reading turnout claims

A business shouldn't assume a strong vote count automatically reflects year-round local support; it might just as easily reflect a well-timed summer push. Neither is dishonest, but conflating the two when describing a win to future customers overstates what actually happened.

What the paper confirms, and what still needs a direct check

Confirmed: The Press of Atlantic City runs the program, the ballot is hosted at pressofatlanticcity.com, and coverage spans Atlantic and Cape May counties. Not confirmed in the record used for this page: the exact nomination window, the number of categories, any per-reader vote cap, and whether nomination carries a fee.

Rather than fill those gaps with an estimate, the honest approach is naming them plainly and pointing a business back to pressofatlanticcity.com for the live rules during whichever cycle it's entering.

Atlantic City proper versus the surrounding shore towns

Egg Harbor Township and Galloway sit just inland of Atlantic City and carry a large share of the region's year-round retail and dining traffic, arguably more consistent than the boardwalk corridor's own tourist-driven rhythm. Absecon and Ventnor City round out the immediate Atlantic City area, while Ocean City, Cape May, and North Wildwood represent the Cape May County side of the ballot, each with its own distinct summer-resort character.

A restaurant in Cape May and a restaurant on the Atlantic City boardwalk can land in the same category on this ballot, competing for votes from readers who may never set foot in the other town, which is worth remembering when interpreting a category win.

The two counties also don't share an economy in any simple sense. Atlantic City's business base leans on casino-driven tourism and convention traffic, while Cape May County further south runs closer to a classic family beach-town economy, motels, boardwalk shops, seafood restaurants, with far less of a year-round convention calendar behind it. A business owner reading a Readers' Choice result from the other county should keep that difference in mind before assuming the same customer habits apply on both ends of the shore.

Building an honest campaign across a two-county, seasonal readership

Timing matters more here than in most markets. A business that knows its voting window falls in the shoulder season, before the summer crowds arrive, should lean harder on its year-round local base; one voting during peak summer can reasonably ask seasonal customers too, as long as the ask is honest about who's actually being asked.

For the general mechanics behind any readers'-choice push, see how online contest votes work and award-style vote campaigns. Before committing budget to a summer-season turnout push, is buying votes legal is worth reading against the paper's own, unpublished current-cycle rules.