The Section III Girls Athlete of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Section III Girls Athlete of the Year ballot is and who runs it

The Section III Girls Athlete of the Year is a fan-decided award for high school girl athletes in New York. Section III runs the program under its own name, and the ballot is the Crowdsignal poll numbered 17140516 on poll.fm, reachable at https://poll.fm/17140516. The question the ballot asks is printed in its own title: who is the Section III girls athlete of the year. The format is a straight fan vote rather than a judged or panel-selected honor, so the outcome depends entirely on how many supporters each finalist turns out.

The ballot sits in the sport vertical and belongs to a wider family of New York fan-vote programs, from weekly player of the week ballots run by news publishers to annual athlete of the year honors. What separates this one is the organizer. The program carries the Section III name rather than a newspaper masthead, and the ballot page is a single question with a short list of finalists rather than a multi-category readers poll.

The dated record for the Section III girls athlete of the year vote

Three editions of the Section III Girls Athlete of the Year are confirmed: 2022, 2023 and 2026. Every confirmed run has put its voting window in June, so the ballot is a late-school-year event rather than a fall or winter one. The most recent ballot, the June 2026 edition, has closed, and its result is published in full on the poll.fm page.

That closed ballot drew 613 total votes across four finalists. The leading finalist finished with 67 percent of the vote, or 410 votes. The runner-up took 14 percent, or 83 votes. The third finalist finished at 10 percent with 62 votes, and the fourth at 9 percent with 58 votes. The announcement promoting the ballot noted that the poll would close at 10 a.m. on a Monday.

Section III has not printed the exact day the next ballot opens and closes, the nomination process ahead of it, or any per-supporter limit; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. No rules text of any kind appears on the ballot page, so nothing on it describes eligibility for the finalists or a cap on repeat voting.

How a supporter votes in the Section III girls athlete of the year poll

A supporter's first move is loading https://poll.fm/17140516, reading the question and the finalist list, picking the radio button next to their preferred athlete, and submitting the choice with the vote button. Once the vote is logged, the page shows the running result, which is how the 613-vote total and the four percentages on the closed 2026 ballot became visible.

No login step appears on the ballot page, so nothing asks a supporter to create an account before voting. It also states nothing about any ceiling on repeat votes from a single person, and no daily return rule. Because the 2026 ballot is closed, the page currently displays the final result rather than an open question. Section III has not said when the next edition opens, and no nomination step is described on the page.

Anyone planning ahead should note that the confirmed window is June, so the live ballot, when one is running, replaces the closed result at the same poll.fm address during that month.

How this ballot sits beside its New York neighbours

New York is well covered by fan-vote ballots, and the Section III Girls Athlete of the Year differs from most of them in cadence and scope. The Buffalo News Prep Talk Girls Athlete of the Week is a weekly honor run by a newspaper, and the lohud Boys Basketball Player of the Week and Lohud Girls Basketball Player of the Week are weekly ballots tied to one sport and one publisher's coverage area. This program, by contrast, is an annual athlete of the year vote with no publisher masthead on it.

The football side of the market follows the same weekly pattern: the Hudson Valley New York High School Football Player of the Week, the New York High School Football Player of the Week and the New York Section 1 High School Football Player of the Week all reset on a weekly cycle. The Section III ballot asks a season-spanning question instead, and its June window means the result lands at the end of the school year rather than during a playing season.

For a supporter, that difference matters: a weekly ballot rewards fast mobilization inside a few days, while an annual ballot like this one concentrates the whole year's support into a single June round.

Strengthening support in a single June ballot

Because the Section III Girls Athlete of the Year is one annual round rather than a weekly series, a supporter's window to move votes is short and falls in June. The ballot page carries no rule from Section III about outside help, paid support or voting software, so the organizer's position on any of it is not stated on the page itself. Before spending money on any vote package, it is worth reading whether buying votes is legal and what organizers generally say about it.

Support that does not rely on rules the ballot leaves unpublished is the safer ground: reaching the school community directly during the June window, and using the tactics in our guide to getting more votes online. The service options behind buying votes online exist for ballots like this one, but no purchase changes what Section III does or does not publish about its rules.