24Hillsboro'sBest: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who votes and why Hillsboro's Best matters locally

Hillsboro's Best is a readers' choice ballot for Hillsboro, Oregon, run by the Hillsboro News-Times, the Pamplin Media newspaper that covers the city. The format is a business best-of contest: residents nominate the local places they want on the ballot, and the shortlist that emerges is then put to a public vote. The publisher's own invitation reads, "Nominate your favorite places to eat, shop and more and help us celebrate everything that makes Hillsboro the best!"

That framing tells a supporter who the ballot is for. It is not a statewide award and not a trade panel's pick. The voters are Hillsboro readers, and the nominees are the businesses those readers already eat at, shop at and rely on. A win therefore carries weight with exactly the audience a local business wants: the neighbors who see the newspaper's coverage and use its ballot.

Second Street carries the voting. That platform also powers the publisher's other promotions, and the program's ballot address is hillsboro.secondstreetapp.com/24HillsborosBest. The same hub carries the publisher's sweepstakes promotions alongside the separately listed 2026 edition ballot.

Because a newspaper, not a chamber or an events company, runs the ballot, it doubles as editorial content: the paper promotes the window, and the results feed coverage of local favorites. That is the usual shape of a Pamplin Media community ballot, and it is why the program reads as a civic fixture rather than a marketing stunt.

The dated history: 2025 and 2026 windows

Confirmed editions exist for 2025 and 2026. The 2025 cycle ran as a nomination-and-voting ballot from September 10 through November 10, 2025, and the platform listing marks it closed. The 2026 edition is a separate promotion on the same hub, listed as 2026 Hillsboro's Best, running from August 29 through November 7, 2026, and marked open.

The 2025 history has a wrinkle worth knowing. Alongside the September 10 ballot, the same Second Street hub carried a promotion listed as 2025 Hillsboro's Best with a window of October 7 to November 14, 2025. Both rows belong to the same publisher and the same year, which is why 2025 counts among the confirmed edition years rather than resting on a single dated event.

The two windows share a shape: both open in late summer and close in the first half of November. That is the pattern the dated listings support, and it is as far as the pattern goes. The publisher has not printed a 2027 date, a nomination-phase deadline of its own, or a standing calendar for the program.

Nothing on the ballot page names the categories, sets a per-supporter limit, or spells out eligibility; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The practical takeaway for a supporter is simple. The window that matters is the one on the live ballot today. The 2026 edition closes on November 7, 2026, and anything after that date is speculation until the publisher posts the next round.

How a supporter votes on the Hillsboro ballot

The mechanic is a two-stage form on a single ballot. Second Street classifies the promotion as a ballot that combines nomination with voting, which means the same page first collects write-in nominations and then, once the shortlist is set, collects votes. A supporter who arrives early in the window is nominating; a supporter who arrives later is voting on the finalists.

In the nomination stage, the form asks for favorite local places to eat, shop and more. The supporter types a business into the write-in fields the form provides, and the publisher's prompt makes the intent clear: make sure your favorites will be on the ballot. Nominations are what build the shortlist, so a business that wants to compete needs its customers active in this stage, not just the voting stage.

In the voting stage, the supporter picks from the categories and finalists that the nomination round produced and submits. The 2026 edition stays open until November 7, 2026, so there is a long runway for both stages.

What the form does not publish is the fine print. No posted rule covers whether a supporter may come back repeatedly, whether a login is required, or who is eligible to participate. The live form is the authority: it enforces whatever limit applies at the moment of submission, and its terms screen is the only rules text a supporter is guaranteed to see.

The sequence a first-time supporter follows is short: open the ballot address, read the phase the form shows, nominate or vote accordingly, submit, and return if the form allows it. Nothing about the ballot requires an account with the newspaper, and nothing on the hub suggests the vote costs anything.

Where this ballot sits among Oregon's best-of programs

Hillsboro's Best is one entry in a wider Oregon field of readers' choice ballots. Sibling programs on this site include the Bend Magazine Readers' Choice Awards, Best of Eugene, the Best of the Mid-Valley Community's Choice Awards, Best of Portland, the Coast Weekend Readers' Choice Awards and the Eugene Community's Choice Awards. A separate publisher and a separate market stand behind each of those ballots.

What separates the Hillsboro ballot from those neighbours is scale and sponsorship. It belongs to a single city's newspaper rather than a metro-wide or regional title, and its organizer, the Hillsboro News-Times, is a Pamplin Media paper. The ballot's audience is the paper's Hillsboro readership, which makes the competition narrower and, for a local business, the win more targeted.

The hub itself is busier than most. Besides the ballot, the publisher runs quarterly sweepstakes promotions on the same Second Street address, including a 2026 Q4 $15,000 Sweepstakes scheduled for November 2 through December 9, 2026, and smaller quarterly drawings through 2025 and 2026. A supporter typing the hub address should check the page title, because a sweepstakes entry form and a ballot can sit a click apart.

For a nominee comparing markets, the useful contrast is with the larger Oregon ballots: Portland and Eugene draw from bigger populations, so the vote totals and the promotional effort needed differ. Hillsboro's ballot rewards depth of local support over reach, which is why its nomination stage matters as much as its voting stage.

Strengthening support within this ballot's rules

Because this is a nomination-and-voting ballot, effective support starts before the shortlist exists. A Hillsboro business that wants a place on the 2026 ballot should ask its regulars to nominate it during the early part of the August 29 to November 7 window, then ask the same people back to vote once the finalists appear. The publisher's own prompt, "Make sure your favorites will be on the ballot," is aimed at exactly this habit.

No published rule covers outside vote help, paid promotion, or repeat voting, so the only binding terms are those the live form displays. A campaign that stays inside what the form permits, and asks real customers to participate, is the approach that survives any rules the publisher adds later. Tactics that work across best-of ballots are collected in our votes guide, and the ethics and legality of purchased support are laid out separately on our legality page. A win cannot be promised by any vote service, this site's included, in a ballot whose vote limits are not published in advance.