Fish Fry Poll: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Fish Fry Poll is and who runs it

The Fish Fry Poll is a best-of community ballot run by WILB-FM, the Catholic radio station behind livingbreadradio.com. The station operates from 4365 Fulton Dr. NW in Canton, Ohio, and the poll appears on the station's own domain instead of any outside balloting service. On the ballot page the program carries the fuller name of the St. Raphael Books & Gifts Fish Fry Poll, because St. Raphael Books & Gifts joins the station in presenting it.

The question the poll asks is simple: where is the best fish fry in the region? That makes it a food-and-community vote in the best-of vertical, aimed at the parishes, halls and restaurants that serve fish fries during the Lenten season across the area around Canton. It is a public-vote program, meaning the result comes from supporters casting ballots rather than from a panel of judges.

Because the station publishes the vote itself, everything a supporter needs sits in one place: the ballot, the contest rules and a link to the station's area fish fry guide. The table below lines up the essentials of the program.

The dated record for the Fish Fry Poll

The rules printed on the ballot page for the 2018 edition are the most complete dated facts available for this program. They state that the contest ran from February 16th 2018 to March 26th 2018, that each person could cast one vote per day, and that the fish fry with the most votes at the end of the contest would be named the winner. That window sits squarely in Lent, which is when fish fry season peaks in Ohio.

Confirmed editions of the poll exist for 2018 and 2025. The program counts as an annual one, with a next expected run in 2026, but the two confirmed years are not consecutive, so the station's publishing of the poll has been intermittent rather than unbroken. The 2025 evidence comes from the station's own site structure rather than from a fully dated rules block.

For the edition now running, the ballot page carries no day-level start or finish dates; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. That caution extends to any round structure beyond a single voting phase, since nothing beyond the 2018 rules block describes how a later edition is staged.

What the 2018 rules do establish is the shape of the result: a straight count, one fry crowned at the close, and a daily voting habit as the way supporters build a total. If a newer edition keeps that printed structure, the daily return remains the whole game.

How a supporter votes in the Fish Fry Poll today

Voting starts at the station's ballot page. A supporter opens livingbreadradio.com/fish-fry-poll/ in a browser, reads the contest rules printed at the top, and picks the fish fry they want to back from the listing. The ballot is framed around one question, the best fish fry in the region, so there is no category menu to work through before voting.

The mechanic the station printed for 2018 is a daily one: one vote per person, per day. A supporter who wants a favorite fry to win does not vote once and stop. They return the next day, cast another ballot, and keep that rhythm for as long as the poll stays open. Under the 2018 window that habit ran from mid-February to late March.

The ballot page also links to the station's area fish fry guide, which is where a supporter can see details on the fries in the running. For a business or parish on the ballot, that guide is worth reading before rallying supporters, since it is the organizer's own description of each entry.

Because the vote lives on the station's domain rather than a large balloting platform, the page is simple and the rules sit right beside the ballot. Anything the current edition changes about limits or eligibility would be printed in that same rules block, which is the first thing to read on each visit.

Where the Fish Fry Poll sits among Ohio best-of ballots

The Fish Fry Poll is one of several community-vote programs running in Ohio, and it stands apart from them on two points. First, WILB-FM publishes it on livingbreadradio.com, a domain the station controls itself, instead of on a national balloting platform. Second, its subject is a single seasonal food tradition, the Lenten fish fry, rather than a broad readers-choice survey spanning many categories.

Its neighbours in the state's best-of landscape are larger and broader. The Best of Ohio ballot and the Best in Ohio Business Awards cover the whole state, while metro-level programs such as the Akron Community's Choice Awards, the CBUS Top Picks Community Choice Awards in Columbus, and Best of Cincinnati from CityBeat serve their own cities. Sports radio runs its own food bracket too, in 97.1 The Fan Pizza Madness Columbus.

Against that field, the Fish Fry Poll is the narrowly focused, faith adjacent entry: a radio station in Canton asking its listeners to crown one fish fry in the region. For a parish or fry house on its ballot, the competition is not a sprawling multi-category survey but a single count, which makes daily supporter turnout the deciding factor in a way the bigger polls rarely match.

Building daily support for a Fish Fry Poll entry

Because the printed rules allow one vote per person per day, the strongest campaign for a fish fry on this ballot is a routine, not a single push. Announce the poll at weekend Masses or in your regular customer communications, name the exact ballot address, and ask each supporter to bookmark the page and return daily until the contest closes. A supporter who votes on twenty separate days is worth far more than one who votes once.

Pair the ask with the station's own fish fry guide, since the ballot page links to it and supporters use it to find participating fries. Remind people on the days your fry actually serves fish, when the ask feels natural. Stay inside the rules the station prints for the current edition, and if anything about outside help or vote limits is unclear, ask the station directly before the window opens rather than after.