Lebanon Valley Community's Choice Awards: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Lebanon Valley Community's Choice Awards is and who runs it

A readers-choice ballot for the Lebanon Valley of Pennsylvania, the Lebanon Valley Community's Choice Awards honors local businesses and organizations. It is run by the local paper within the Gannett / USA TODAY Network, and the ballot itself lives on the Your Choice Awards platform, at the address yourchoiceawards.com/lebanon. The program celebrates local businesses and organizations rather than individuals, which places it in the readers-choice tradition shared by best-of contests across Pennsylvania.

The ballot is broad. The program's own page describes a long category list, and states that each year the program recognizes over 360 businesses and organizations, all thanks to community involvement. Nominations and voting both happen on the same Your Choice Awards site, and the page carries sections for How It Works, Categories, Winners, Business Resources and an FAQ.

For a supporter, the practical picture is simple. A local business is nominated, the leading nominees in each category advance, and the public then votes for favorites during the voting round. Because the ballot is hosted centrally on Your Choice Awards, the address stays the same from cycle to cycle, which makes it easy to bookmark and revisit. The table below lists the fixed details of this Lebanon Valley program.

The dated calendar: editions, rounds and what is not published

The program is annual. Editions are confirmed for 2025 and for 2026, and the 2026 cycle is documented on the ballot page in full. That cycle ran in three phases. The Nomination Round ran March 2-23, 2026, and the page frames it as the point where it all begins with nominations; people who nominated a business were entered to win a $250 prize. Once nominations ended, the leading businesses in each category moved forward into the Voting Round, which ran May 6-20, 2026. After voting ended, winners were announced on July 26, 2026.

All three of those dates describe a completed cycle, because the 2026 voting round has closed. The page carries no dates for the 2027 cycle, and the organizer has not published an eligibility rule stating who may cast a ballot; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

What the published calendar does establish is the rhythm a supporter can plan around: a nomination phase in early spring, a voting phase in May, and a winners reveal in late July. The ballot page does not say whether those same months hold for 2027, so anyone planning a campaign should treat the 2026 calendar as a pattern, not a promise, and check the page when the next nomination phase approaches.

How a supporter votes in the Lebanon Valley ballot today

Voting happens on the Your Choice Awards ballot for the Lebanon Valley. The program's stated rule allows a single vote in every category on each day the round is live. In practice that means a supporter opens the ballot, picks a category, finds the business they want to back, and casts a vote; the next day they can return and vote again in that same category. Because the limit is per category rather than per ballot, a supporter who cares about several local businesses can back a favorite restaurant and a favorite plumber on the same day without the votes affecting each other.

The 2026 voting round closed on May 20, 2026, so the ballot page currently shows the completed cycle: the category list, the winners announced July 26, 2026, and the program's explanation of how it works. When the next cycle opens, the same address will carry the live ballot, which is why the page is worth bookmarking rather than rediscovering through search each spring.

The page does not state whether voting requires an account or an email verification step, so a supporter should plan a few extra minutes on the first visit of a round to see what the form asks for. Everything else a voter needs, the categories and the vote button, sits on that single page.

How this ballot sits beside its Pennsylvania neighbours

The Lebanon Valley ballot is one of several best-of programs running across Pennsylvania, each run by a different publisher for a different market. Best of Berks belongs to Berks County Living Magazine, Best of Philly belongs to Philadelphia Magazine, and Best of the Lehigh Valley belongs to Lehigh Valley Style. Best of the 'Burgh, the Bucks County & Chester County Readers' Choice and Erie Reader Best of Erie round out the set.

What separates the Lebanon Valley Community's Choice Awards from all of them is its publisher and its host. It is the entry belonging to the Gannett / USA TODAY Network's local paper, and it runs on the Your Choice Awards platform rather than on a magazine's own site or an alt-weekly's contest system. Its scale is also printed openly: a long category list, and over 360 businesses and organizations recognized each year through community involvement.

For a supporter, the difference matters mainly in timing and reach. Each of these programs is run by its own publisher on its own calendar, so a business that competes in the Lebanon Valley ballot cannot carry its standing into Berks or the Lehigh Valley, and a vote in the Lebanon Valley program counts only inside this program. Treat each ballot as its own campaign with its own window.

Strengthening support within the daily-vote rule

Daily returns are what carry a business in this program. The stated rule, one vote in each category per day while the round is open, means a business's strongest asset is supporters who come back every day of the voting round rather than voting a single time. A business that reminds customers in person, by email and on social media at the start of each day gives that habit something to attach to, and the nomination phase matters just as much, since only the leading businesses in each category reach the voting round at all.

The organizer's rules on outside help are not printed beyond the daily frequency limit, so anything beyond asking real supporters to vote should be weighed carefully against the program's terms before a business commits to it. The honest path is the one the ballot is designed for: a clear ask, a daily reminder, and supporters who know exactly which category to find their favorite in. For a general walkthrough of outreach that fits a daily-vote ballot, see how supporters can be rallied online, and for the wider legal question see whether buying votes is legal.