Citizen Times Preseason High School Defensive Lineman of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Citizen Times Preseason Defensive Lineman of the Year poll?

The Citizen Times Preseason High School Defensive Lineman of the Year is a summer fan ballot from the newspaper The Citizen Times, aimed at high school football across Western North Carolina. Instead of a broad community favorites list, it narrows to a single trench position and asks readers to settle the argument themselves: which returning defensive lineman deserves preseason recognition before fall games begin.

The paper builds the ballot by ranking the top 15 returning defensive linemen for the 2026 NCHSAA and NCISAA football seasons, then hands the final call to the public. Balloting runs through Crowdsignal, whose poll pages live at poll.fm addresses; this program's ballot sits at https://poll.fm/15657186. Once a round ends, the same page carries the closed notice.

Classed here as a best-of style competition with a straight public-vote mechanic, the ballot is reachable from anywhere in the United States even though its subject belongs entirely to Western North Carolina. That narrow frame shapes everything around it: a single position, a single region, a single offseason window, and a reader decision at the end. Supporters know exactly who they are backing, and campaigns know exactly which audience to reach.

Quick facts

The Citizen Times ranks 15 returning Western North Carolina defensive linemen each preseason and lets readers pick the winner on Crowdsignal.

When has the lineman poll run, and which dates are known?

Two summer editions are confirmed for this lineman vote, one in 2025 and a follow-up in 2026, making the ballot a recurring early-summer fixture rather than a one-off stunt. The 2025 ballot's own headline now reads as closed, and the paper came back with a fresh slate the following season.

Both known editions cluster in the early-summer preseason stretch, before NCHSAA and NCISAA teams report for fall camp. Platform dating places the 2025 ballot wholly inside June, while the 2026 deadline fell in July, so a season's voting stretch spans roughly a month from launch to cutoff. The slot suits the product: the ranking exists to preview the coming season, so the ballot lands while anticipation is highest.

Beyond that seasonal pattern, the published trail thins out. No opening day, nomination round or written rules block has ever accompanied the lineman poll; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Nothing on the ballot page states how long a round stays open, and no 2027 announcement exists yet.

For planning purposes, early summer is the stretch to watch the paper's sports desk, since both known editions surfaced there.

Voting in the 2026 edition ended at noon on July 9, per the Citizen Times' own announcement.

How does a supporter actually vote in the lineman poll?

Casting a ballot is deliberately plain. While a round is open, a supporter loads https://poll.fm/15657186, scans the ranked slate, selects one name from the list and confirms it. Entries pair each player with his school, so a reader can back a familiar program even without recognizing every name on the list.

The stated rule and the missing ones

The Citizen Times' promotion frames the lineman vote as one selection per person. Beyond that framing, the ballot prints no device rule, no daily reset and no sign-in requirement, so the poll page is the final word while a round runs.

After the deadline the page switches to a closed notice, as the 2025 ballot now shows. A closed poll accepts no further clicks, and the result stands until the paper rolls out the next summer slate.

A supporter votes by selecting one returning lineman from the published slate at the poll.fm page while the round is open.

How does this ballot sit beside its North Carolina neighbours?

North Carolina readers meet plenty of public ballots, and this one sits at the narrow end of the family. The state's wider set includes Best of North Carolina, Charlotte Magazine's Best of the Best balloting, the Daily Reflector's Pitt County reader favorites, the community-choice lineup out of Fayetteville and the 2025 Diamond Awards, all broad recognition programmes where whole categories compete at once.

The closest cousin in spirit is the 910Preps fan-vote honor for boys soccer, another reader-decided individual award from the state's sports scene. Where that ballot centers on soccer, the Citizen Times vote stays inside football and digs down to a single position group.

That focus changes campaign math. A broad best-of ballot spreads attention across dozens of businesses or places, while the lineman poll concentrates every reader's gaze on a short list of returning players from one region. Fewer options mean each nominee's circle carries more weight, and a well-organized school community can move the needle faster than in a sprawling field. Because every nominee comes from the same corner of the state, support networks overlap too: alumni of one program still recognize rival schools' names, which keeps overall participation wider than any single school's base.

Newspapers across the state run reader votes, but the Citizen Times is the only one dedicating a preseason ballot purely to defensive line play.

How can a campaign strengthen a nominee's support in this poll?

Because the Citizen Times frames the lineman vote as one selection per person, volume has to come from people, not repetition. The productive moves are familiar: share the poll.fm address directly, ask the school's families and alumni to vote during the short summer window, and post reminders while the round is still live rather than after it closes.

Timing matters as much as message here. A slate built before fall camp gives supporters a bounded stretch to act in, so outreach lined up before the ballot goes live tends to reach more of a school's community than a push that starts past the midpoint of the round.

Nothing the Citizen Times has put in print addresses outside assistance aimed at this lineman ballot, so anyone weighing purchased support must judge that silence personally. The practical playbook for fan votes, including outreach habits that suit a short-window ballot, sits in the guide to getting more votes online.

Whatever the channel, the finish line stays constant: the tallest pile of genuine supporter clicks when the paper closes the round.