Finger Lakes Favorites: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who runs Finger Lakes Favorites and who votes in it

Finger Lakes Favorites is a best-of ballot run by Cayuga Radio Group, a broadcaster serving the Ithaca, New York area. The program asks the public to cast votes for the best businesses, restaurants, professionals, shops and attractions in the region, which places it squarely in the readers-choice vertical: the winners are decided entirely by ordinary supporters, not by a jury or an editor.

Cayuga Radio Group hosts the ballot itself at fingerlakesfavorites.com, with the voting page at fingerlakesfavorites.com/vote/. The group has not moved the program to an outside contest platform, so the official rules page and the live ballot sit on the same domain supporters already know.

Supporters are residents and visitors to the Ithaca market who want to put local favorites first. Cayuga Radio Group described the program's inaugural edition as an exploration of the individuals and businesses that are the best at what they do, a roster spanning the businesses, restaurants, professionals, shops and attractions a Finger Lakes reader encounters week to week. The exact lineup for any given cycle is printed on the live site rather than restated here.

The dated record for Finger Lakes Favorites

Confirmed editions of Finger Lakes Favorites ran in 2021, 2024, 2025 and 2026. The 2021 cycle was the inaugural edition, and the program has since settled into an annual rhythm in the Ithaca market, with a gap between 2021 and 2024 before the run became continuous.

The 2026 cycle has two published windows. The nomination period begins Wednesday, April 16th at 12:00 pm and ends Wednesday, May 7th at 05:00 pm; the organizer notes that supporters may return any time before that May 7th close to add nominations. The regular voting period then begins Wednesday, May 14th at 12:00 pm and ends Friday, May 30th at 05:00 pm. That gives nominations a three-week run and voting a roughly two-week run, back to back.

Cayuga Radio Group has not printed the category roster for 2026 on the ballot page, nor any cap limiting repeat voting by a supporter, so confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The next edition after 2026 would be expected in 2027, but the organizer announces each cycle on fingerlakesfavorites.com itself rather than on a calendar elsewhere, so the live site is the authority on every future date.

How a supporter votes in Finger Lakes Favorites

The mechanic is deliberately simple, because Cayuga Radio Group wants a broad local audience rather than a competition of campaign machinery. A supporter opens the ballot at fingerlakesfavorites.com/vote/ during the regular voting window between Wednesday, May 14th at 12:00 pm and Friday, May 30th at 05:00 pm, browses the categories, picks the businesses, restaurants, professionals, shops and attractions they want to recognize, and submits.

The organizer's own description of the program asks residents and visitors to vote daily for their favorites within these categories. That daily rhythm matters for anyone backing a business: support that arrives once and stops is worth far less than support that returns every day of the two-week window.

Before voting even opens, the nomination phase matters. From Wednesday, April 16th at 12:00 pm to Wednesday, May 7th at 05:00 pm, supporters may add nominations, and the organizer explicitly allows returning before that May 7th close to add more. A business that reaches its customers early in April has the best chance of appearing across the full roster when ballots open.

Because Cayuga Radio Group runs this ballot itself instead of renting a contest platform, everything a supporter needs, from the ballot to the official rules to the winners archive, is on one domain.

How Finger Lakes Favorites sits beside its New York neighbours

New York carries a whole family of best-of ballots, and Finger Lakes Favorites is the member that speaks for the Ithaca and Finger Lakes region. Nearby programmes cover the downstate metros and each has its own publisher, its own roster and its own cycle, so a category win in one carries no weight in another.

The closest siblings on this site include Best of Brooklyn, Best of Hudson Valley, The City's Best, Best of New York City, Best of Queens, Best of the Bronx and Best of Westchester. A business with locations in both Ithaca and, say, Brooklyn could legitimately appear on two separate ballots, run by two separate organizers, in two separate windows.

What distinguishes Finger Lakes Favorites is its host. Cayuga Radio Group runs the ballot from its own website, fingerlakesfavorites.com, instead of renting a contest platform, and it anchors the cycle to a spring window, with nominations in April and voting through the end of May. The 2021, 2024, 2025 and 2026 edition years mark it as an annual fixture, not a one-off promotion, which is why supporters in the Finger Lakes region treat it as a recurring spring ritual.

Strengthening support within the rules of the ballot

The ballot's own structure rewards daily participation: Cayuga Radio Group asks residents and visitors to vote daily for their favorites across the categories. For a business owner in the Ithaca market, the practical playbook is to turn that into a habit for customers, with reminders during the voting window from Wednesday, May 14th through Friday, May 30th, and to use the April nomination period to secure a place on the roster early.

Outreach that follows the organizer's rules, personal asks, signage, social posts and email reminders to real customers, is the support Finger Lakes Favorites was designed for. Anything purchased through a third party still has to pass whatever the official rules page says about outside help, so a business should read those terms before committing budget. This guide to getting more votes walks through compliant tactics step by step.