Vote for the Pocono Record Girls Athlete of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who votes in the Pocono Record Girls Athlete of the Year and why

The Pocono Record is the daily newspaper for the Pocono region of Pennsylvania, and its Girls Athlete of the Year vote is aimed squarely at the community that follows its high school sports desk. The people who cast ballots are readers with a stake in the outcome: the families of the nominees, classmates, teammates, and the wider school communities whose seasons the paper covers week to week. Unlike a statewide award, this ballot draws its field entirely from the paper's own coverage area, so the audience is local by design.

The vote is a public one. Anyone who reaches the ballot page on Crowdsignal can read the nominee list and submit a choice, and the running split between nominees is visible as results come in. That openness is what makes school communities treat the result as a real honor: the athlete whose supporters turn out wins on the tally printed beside her name. In the finished 2025-26 poll, the results view showed a close split between the leading nominees, which is typical of a ballot decided by organized local turnout rather than a single dominant favorite.

The table below gathers the essentials a supporter or a school booster group needs before planning any push.

The dated record, editions and the July window

Confirmed editions so far are 2025 and 2026. The current ballot carries the title Vote for the 2025-26 Pocono Record Girls Athlete of the Year, tying it to the school year that ended in 2026, and the poll is marked closed on poll.fm. The timing information for the confirmed cycle places voting in July, with the window opening and closing inside that month. That fits the shape of a school-year award: the season ends in spring, the paper sets the ballot for summer, and the result runs before the next school year begins.

Beyond the month, the paper has printed remarkably little. The precise day the window opens and the day it closes have never appeared in print, so a supporter planning around a deadline should confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The ballot likewise carries no category list: this is a single girls athlete award as far as the confirmed page shows, with no published breakdown of sports or seasons. A cap on repeat voting and any eligibility terms are both absent from print, and the paper has not issued a rule set anywhere a reader could cite.

For 2027, the annual pattern suggests a fresh ballot for the next school year, but no dates for it exist in print yet. The 2025-26 address will not carry the next vote, since a closed poll stays closed and each edition gets its own page on Crowdsignal. Treat the paper's sports coverage, not the old link, as the signpost for the next launch.

How a supporter votes on the live ballot

Voting takes only moments, and that simplicity is why school communities can mobilize around it quickly. A supporter lands on the ballot, reads through the nominee list, marks the selection next to the athlete's name, and presses the button at the bottom of the form to submit. Crowdsignal registers the choice immediately and returns the running percentage split, so a supporter sees at once that the tally has registered. Nobody needs an account, no sign-up stage interrupts the flow, and no nomination round is visible on the confirmed ballot: the poll presents the full field and takes votes directly.

Because the platform is a plain public poll, the practical experience is the same on a phone or a desktop. The form fits a small screen, the names and schools are listed together, and the results view updates as the tally grows. Supporters sharing the link within a school community therefore face no technical barrier: the same address works for everybody.

What the ballot does not show is any rule about frequency. Nothing printed beside the nominees addresses return visits, repeated voting, or the eligibility of participants. The paper has left all of that unstated, so a booster group planning a concerted push has nothing in writing either permitting or restraining it. If the paper ever adds terms of that kind, they will appear beside the nominees on the ballot itself, which is where a reader should look before any organized effort begins.

How this ballot sits beside its Pennsylvania neighbours

Pennsylvania carries a busy field of public school-sports votes, and this program is distinctive in its scope. Where most of its neighbours are weekly honors or single-sport awards, the Pocono Record ballot names a single Girls Athlete of the Year across the paper's coverage area, drawn from the whole girls high school program rather than from one sport. It also belongs to a newspaper rather than a broadcaster or a league, which shapes the audience: the paper's readers, not a TV market or an athletic association's members.

Several sibling ballots sit on this site for comparison. Mr. PA Football is a statewide football award. The PennLive Mid-Penn Boys Basketball Player of the Week and the Pennsylvania High School Football Player of the Week run on weekly cycles, so their windows open and close far faster than this annual vote. The Pennsylvania High School Softball Player of the Year is the closest structural cousin, a season-long award decided by public ballot in a single sport. The Morning Call Athlete of the Week and the WICU Athlete of the Year round out the state's newspaper and broadcaster variants.

What sets the Pocono Record vote apart for supporters is geography and frequency combined: a local field, a school-year award, and a summer window that lands when the season's story is still fresh.

Strengthening support in a summer community poll

Because this is a straight public vote with a visible tally, the effective moves are the plain ones. Share the poll.fm address directly with the nominee's school community rather than describing it secondhand, since the form takes a mark and a submit with no sign-up in between. A summer window works in supporters' favor: July leaves room for a slow build among families and teammates before any late surge, and the percentage split on the results view tells a group instantly whether turnout is landing.

The paper has stated no rule on outside help, so no supporter can point to printed permission, and no purchase can promise a result in a tally the organizer controls. The safest framing for any group is turnout: real people in the school community, reached through the channels they already use. Our votes guide covers outreach methods for community polls of this shape, and the award-votes page explains the paid option for readers who want the full picture before deciding.