Best of the Border Community's Choice Awards: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Best of the Border Community's Choice Awards is and who runs it

The Best of the Border Community's Choice Awards celebrates the leading businesses and organizations across the El Paso area. The Gannett / USA TODAY Network newsroom in El Paso organizes it, and businesses nominated for the 2026 program credit the El Paso Times. The ballot sits on the Your Choice Awards site at yourchoiceawards.com/elpaso/, and the site footer carries a USA TODAY NETWORK Ventures copyright line for 2026.

Structurally this is a best-of business awards program, not a readers poll about people or teams. The organizer says the program recognizes more than 420 businesses and organizations each year across its many categories. The ballot site is built around five areas: How It Works, Categories, an Awards Gala page, a Winners Section and Business Resources, alongside a FAQ.

What separates it from a plain popularity vote is the two-stage design. The program starts with public nominations, and from the top five nominees in each category the voting round selects the finalists and winners. That means a business must first draw nomination support, then hold and convert that support into daily votes once the round opens.

The dated timeline for the Border awards

Editions of the program ran in 2025 and 2026, and the organizer describes it as an annual recognition of more than 420 businesses and organizations in the El Paso area. The 2026 cycle is the most fully dated. Its nomination round ran May 4 to 25, 2026, after which nominations closed and the strongest companies in each field moved forward into the voting round. Voting then ran from July 9 to 23, 2026, with winners announced October 6, 2026.

Each cycle follows the same three-phase shape: public nominations first, then the voting round among the top companies in each category, then a winners announcement. The ballot page labels every phase as open or closed, so the calendar is always readable straight from the site. The nomination phase also carried a supporter incentive, with entrants in the running for a $250 giveaway.

Beyond that, the organizer has not posted the 2027 nomination and voting dates; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The phase structure itself, nominations first, then voting, then a winners announcement, is the stable part of the calendar, while the exact dates move from cycle to cycle.

How a supporter votes in the Border ballot today

The mechanic a supporter performs is simple but paced. During the voting round, which in 2026 ran July 9 to 23, a supporter goes to the El Paso ballot page, finds the category, and selects the El Paso area business they want to back. The organizer's stated rule allows one vote, per category, on each day the round runs.

That frequency rule shapes everything about effective support. Because the limit resets daily rather than blocking repeat participation entirely, a business's supporters can act daily across the whole window, once each day, in every category where the business appears. Only companies that advanced from the nomination round are on the voting ballot, so the field in each category is the top five nominees from May.

The ballot page itself is the authority on the live state of the program. It labels each phase, nominations, voting, winners, as open or closed, so a supporter arriving between rounds sees the current status rather than a stale form. No purchase is involved in voting, and the organizer publishes no paid tier for supporters; casting a vote on Your Choice Awards costs nothing.

How this ballot sits beside its Texas neighbours

El Paso hosts two distinct programs on this site, and they should not be confused. The Best of El Paso page covers a separate readers poll with its own publisher and ballot, while this page covers the Best of the Border Community's Choice Awards, organized by the Gannett / USA TODAY Network newsroom and hosted on Your Choice Awards. A business nominated "by the El Paso Times" belongs on this ballot, not the other one.

Across Texas the same network and rival publishers run parallel programs: the Best of Austin Readers Poll, the Best of Dallas Readers' Choice, Best of Houston, Best of San Antonio and Best of Fort Worth from Fort Worth Magazine. Support earned in one counts for nothing in the others, because each ballot answers to its own organizer.

What makes the Border program distinctive within that set is its market and its structure. It is the sole member of that set anchored to the El Paso border market, and its two-stage design, public nominations feeding a top-five shortlist before voting, is more formal than a single open vote. Its gala also gives winners an in-person moment most online polls never offer.

Strengthening support within the Border ballot's rules

The organizer's own rule defines the playing field: one vote per person per category per day during the voting round. The most effective legitimate push is therefore a daily rhythm, asking customers each morning of the window to cast their vote, since a reminder on day one and silence afterwards wastes most of the span the 2026 round allowed.

Businesses nominated for the 2026 program by the El Paso Times promoted their nominations publicly, which is the pattern that fits this ballot: announce the nomination, then convert that audience into daily voters once the top-five shortlist is set. Tactics that fit a daily-reset ballot are gathered in our guide to getting more votes.

On outside help, the honest framing is that the organizer limits frequency, and any approach that floods a category beyond genuine daily participation sits outside the spirit of that rule. Readers weighing a purchase can review the service overview, but no outside method changes the organizer's own stated limit, and no service, ours included, can assure victory in a community awards ballot.