Cleveland's Own Nomination: How Voting Works & How to Win

What Cleveland's Own Nomination is and who runs it

Cleveland's Own Nomination is a public-vote award program run by WJW, the Fox 8 television station whose market is Cleveland, Ohio. The ballot lives on Second Street, the promotion platform that hosts WJW's community programs, at fox8.secondstreetapp.com under the station's own domain. In the platform's registry the promotion is typed as UGCVoting with a photo element, which tells you the ballot combines user-submitted nominees with voting, rather than running as a simple sweepstakes or a gallery.

For a business owner, the practical shape of the program matters more than its label. A nomination-style award in a station's market is a visibility opportunity: the nominee's name and image sit on a page that local supporters already trust because the station's brand carries it. That trust is also why outside help gets scrutinized, and why the organizer's own rules, not anyone else's, decide what counts.

Facts at a glance

The dated picture: editions, window, and what is not published

This is the first confirmed edition; whether it returns next year is not yet published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. That single caveat frames everything a planner needs to know. The confirmed edition year is 2020, and the ballot's listed window runs from June 22, 2020 to September 25, 2027, with the promotion showing as open on the platform today. No later edition year is confirmed anywhere for this program, and the station has not published a next cycle for it.

Two gaps deserve plain language. The ballot's category roster does not appear in the listing this page describes, and no per-supporter voting rule or eligibility text is carried with it either, so anyone planning a serious push should open the live page and confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Separately, a Fox 8 segment associated with the Cleveland's Own name highlights a Northeast Ohio non-profit each month alongside Kaulig Companies, as described at kauliggiving.com, so the brand covers more on-air activity than the ballot alone.

The long end date is itself worth reading carefully. A window that stretches years ahead usually reflects how the promotion was configured, not a promise of continuous voting rounds, so round-by-round timing is something the live page will show and this summary cannot.

How a supporter votes on the ballot today

Voting happens on the Second Street page WJW runs at fox8.secondstreetapp.com. A supporter opens the ballot, finds the nominee they want to back, and follows the prompts to submit a vote. Because the promotion is typed as a user-generated voting and photo ballot, expect photos next to entries and expect the page, not a summary like this, to control what happens next: some Second Street ballots ask for an email address before a vote registers, some ask for a sign-in, and some invite repeat visits on a set rhythm.

The mechanic a supporter actually performs, in other words, is whatever the live page asks of them at the moment they vote. That sounds like a hedge, but it is the honest description for a ballot whose rules text is not published alongside its listing. What can be said firmly is where the vote happens, who operates it, and what the page is built to do: collect public votes for nominated entries with photo content, under WJW's brand, in the Cleveland market.

Practical advice follows directly. If you are asking customers to vote, send them straight to the ballot and name the nominee in your message, so nobody has to search for the entry. Test the flow yourself before you broadcast the link, so you know whether the page asks for an email, whether it confirms the vote, and how it behaves on a phone, where most of your customers will open it.

How this ballot sits beside its Ohio neighbours

Cleveland's Own Nomination is not the only public-vote program on this site's Ohio pages, and its neighbours help define what makes it different. WJW itself runs several other Second Street promotions on the same host, including Fox 8 Pet Project, Fox 8 Weather School, Pets of the Day and the FOX 8 Stork Report, though none of those is a best-of business award of this kind. Within the state's broader best-of scene, the siblings on this site are the Best of Ohio ballot, the Best in Ohio Business Awards, the Akron Community's Choice Awards in the neighbouring market of Akron, the CBUS Top Picks Community Choice Awards in Columbus, Best of Cincinnati from CityBeat, and 97.1 The Fan Pizza Madness Columbus, a food bracket run by a sports radio station.

What separates this program from each of them is its publisher. Every sibling answers to a different station, paper or broadcaster, and WJW's Fox 8 brand is the one Cleveland audiences associate with this nomination. A rule or category structure from any sibling ballot tells you nothing certain about this page, because each organizer configures its own promotion.

Strengthening support for a nominee on this ballot

Support on this ballot has to come through the page WJW operates, so build the push around that link. The basics still carry a nomination further than anything else: a clear message naming the nominee, a strong photo since this is a photo-enabled ballot, and reminders sent on whatever rhythm the live page permits. Ask in person at the counter, put the link in receipts, and have staff share it personally, because a request from a familiar name converts better than a broadcast post.

Be equally clear about the boundary. WJW's own terms govern this promotion, and no outside help overrides an organizer's rules; any purchased support is subject to what those terms permit, and the station can enforce them as written. Honest, repeated asks to real customers remain the dependable core of a nomination push for a Cleveland business.