Best of the Best (Jamestown Area): How Voting Works & How to Win

A 17-year ballot that clears 32,400 votes in a city of 15,000

Jamestown's population sits around 15,000. Its 2025 Best of the Best ballot drew more than 32,400 votes. Do that math and it's obvious this isn't a novelty poll somebody launched last spring; it's the Jamestown Sun, part of Forum Communications, running its 17th consecutive annual cycle across Stutsman County.

Seventeen years is long enough that voting has become routine rather than a one-off ask. A shopper who wrote in a favorite diner back in the contest's early years may now be voting alongside a grown kid who works retail downtown. That kind of accumulated habit doesn't exist in a first- or second-year contest, and the turnout number reflects it directly.

These numbers are specific to Jamestown's own edition. Don't reuse them for Fargo, Bismarck, or Minot; each North Dakota market that runs a readers-choice ballot has its own organizer, its own dates, and its own totals. See the North Dakota contest hub for the wider state picture.

The finalist gap, and why nothing happens in it

October brings nominations. November brings the finalist vote. In between, the Jamestown Sun narrows every category down from write-ins to a shortlist, and there's no public action a business or its supporters can take during that stretch.

Treat the gap as dead time, not a delay

A business that pauses outreach the moment nominations close isn't losing ground. There's genuinely nothing live to point people at until the finalist ballot goes up. What matters more is confirming finalist status the moment the ballot updates, then having the first vote reminder ready to send that same day rather than a week late.

For the broader mechanics that apply to any award-style push once a ballot is live, award vote campaigns covers timing and message cadence in more general terms, and the general playbook for sustained vote drives covers reminder pacing across a multi-week window like this one; what's above is specific to this Jamestown cycle.

Why the print insert changes what a win is worth

Most readers-choice contests stop at a webpage. Best of the Best doesn't. Winners get printed in the Best of the Midwest magazine insert, distributed across the Jamestown Sun and other Forum Communications papers, a physical object that lands in mailboxes and driveways whether or not the household ever visits jamestownsun.com.

A business used to a purely digital local poll can under-sell a Best of the Best win by treating it like any other webpage badge. The insert is the part worth mentioning by name in a follow-up press release or a framed copy behind the register. The restaurant vote campaign guide covers pacing reminders for a multi-week window like this one, useful for food-service nominees specifically.

Stutsman County isn't just Jamestown proper

The Jamestown Sun's readership stretches past the city itself into Stutsman County and neighboring trade towns, Valley City to the east along I-94, Carrington and Cooperstown to the north, smaller communities like Medina, Buffalo, and Spiritwood woven through the surrounding farmland. A business drawing customers from any of those towns should treat that wider radius as its real voting pool, not just Jamestown addresses.

North Dakota's rural trade areas work differently from a dense metro ballot. There's no separate bracket for a Carrington business versus a Jamestown one; scope depends on which category and which year's ballot a nominee lands on. Check the live listing each cycle rather than assuming last year's geographic scope repeats exactly.

A founder or owner whose own name carries local recognition, common in a trade area this size, may also want the personal-brand vote outreach guide for framing reminders that mention a named principal alongside the official ballot link. Businesses working from an existing customer list can also lean on the email vote outreach guide for reaching Stutsman County-area supporters who won't see a social post.

Categories reshuffle every cycle, so last year's list won't match this one

The Jamestown Sun doesn't run a fixed category list year after year. A category that existed in 2022 can be renamed, merged, or dropped by 2025, which means an old flyer, screenshot, or word-of-mouth claim about "the diner category" or "best mechanic" may not map onto anything on the current ballot. Stutsman County has a small enough business community that outdated claims get noticed fast; a shopkeeper down the block usually knows which categories are actually live this year.

That's also why the nomination window matters more here than in a contest with a static structure. A business assuming its category from three years ago still exists risks writing itself into a slot that's been folded into a broader one, or split into two narrower ones, since the last cycle it competed in.

The fix is simple: pull the live category list from jamestownsun.com/community/contests/best-of-the-best-2025 each October rather than relying on memory. For the general mechanics behind a nominate-then-vote structure like this one, how online contest votes work covers the pattern in broader terms. A much smaller Forum Communications sibling in the same regional network runs a similar-shaped program in the Best of Mitchell guide.