Best of The City 2026: How Voting Works & How to Win

What Best of The City 2026 is and who runs it

Best of The City 2026 is a readers' choice award operated by The City Magazine, a publication based in El Paso, Texas. The format follows the best-of tradition: rather than a single race, the ballot invites the magazine's local audience to celebrate the businesses and people they rate highest across everyday categories, and the outcome comes from ordinary supporters rather than a judging panel or an editorial pick.

The ballot lives at the magazine's own web address, thecityep.com/best/, with no third-party poll platform in the middle. That matters to supporters: the nomination form, the finalist list and the results announcement all sit under the magazine's masthead. The site's own navigation shows the breadth The City Magazine covers: Arts & Entertainment, News & City, Dining & Travel, Style & Beauty, Health & Wellness, Top Professionals, and The City Scene, plus a newsstand. The 2026 ballot is the program the magazine has labeled Best of The City, and the copyright line on the page belongs to the publisher itself.

Key facts at a glance

The 2026 calendar: nominations, finalist voting and what is unpublished

The 2026 cycle runs in two phases. Nominations open September 1 and close September 15. The magazine's instruction for that phase is direct: "Submit one local favorite at a time in the category that fits best." That phrasing tells supporters both the pace, a single business per submission, and the expectation that each nomination lands in the right category.

Voting on the confirmed finalists follows, running October 1 through October 15. The ballot page describes the return trip the same way: "Return to choose from the official finalists across the ballot." In other words, September's submissions do not decide winners directly; The City Magazine confirms which nominees advanced, and October's readers choose among them.

On the edition question, the facts are narrow. The 2026 ballot is live at thecityep.com/best/ and its calendar is printed there. This is the first confirmed edition; whether it returns next year is not yet published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Beyond the calendar, the page prints no category roster and no per-person voting rule for the October round, so a supporter who needs either detail must read the live form itself. The same holds for eligibility: nothing on the page describes who may nominate or vote, and no eligibility text is published anywhere else by the magazine.

How a supporter votes in Best of The City 2026 today

Supporting a favorite in Best of The City 2026 is a two-visit job, and both visits go to the same address. The first visit happens during the nomination phase, September 1-15. A supporter opens the ballot at thecityep.com/best/, picks the category that fits the business they want to honor, and submits that favorite. The magazine's wording, one local favorite at a time, means a supporter with several businesses in mind returns to the form once per nomination rather than bundling them.

The second visit is the decisive one. Between October 1 and October 15 the same page turns into the finalist ballot: The City Magazine has confirmed which nominees advanced, and supporters choose from that official list. A business whose fans nominated it in September is not guaranteed a spot in October, so the smartest move for any supporter is to come back and check whether their favorite made the cut.

Because the program runs on the magazine's own site, the mechanics are whatever the ballot page shows, not what a poll platform's standard interface imposes. The page publishes no account requirement, no login step and no description of a per-day limit, and it does not describe a mobile app. What it does publish is the two-phase calendar, and that calendar is the supporter's entire schedule: nominate in the first half of September, vote in the first half of October, and look for the results in the magazine's Best Of issue.

Where this ballot sits among Texas best-of programs

Best of The City 2026 is one of several readers' choice ballots in Texas, and each belongs to a different publisher. In the same state you will find the Best of Austin Readers Poll, the Best of Dallas Readers' Choice, the Best of Houston, the Best of San Antonio, and Best of Fort Worth from Fort Worth Magazine. El Paso itself also has a dedicated program, the Best of El Paso ballot, which is a separate event from the magazine's own award despite sharing the same market.

What distinguishes The City Magazine's program is its publisher-first structure. Some Texas best-of ballots are run by newspapers or city-focused media groups; this one belongs to a lifestyle magazine whose sections run from dining and travel through health and wellness to top professionals, and whose Best Of issue doubles as the results venue. Its two-phase rhythm is also worth noting: several Texas ballots open nominations and voting simultaneously, while this program separates them into a September nominating month and an October finalist month.

The lesson for anyone supporting a nominee is that these programs do not share ballots, vote pools or calendars. A vote cast for a business in the Best of Fort Worth ballot counts there alone, and an El Paso nomination at thecityep.com/best/ counts only in The City Magazine's program. Winning in one says nothing about standing in another.

Building real support for a Best of The City nomination

Because this ballot runs on a nominate-then-finalist rhythm, the work a business does in El Paso has two distinct jobs. In September the goal is submissions: customers who open thecityep.com/best/ and put the business forward in the category that fits best, one favorite at a time. In October the goal changes entirely, because a nomination only matters if The City Magazine confirms the business as an official finalist and its supporters return between the 1st and the 15th to choose it. A business that rallies everyone in September and then goes quiet has spent its goodwill on a round that does not decide the winner.

The magazine has not published a rule addressing outside voting help, paid services or automated activity for the 2026 ballot, so any business weighing those options is operating without the organizer's written position on the question. Reading the live form's own terms is the only way to know what the ballot permits, and the award votes overview explains how purchased votes work in readers' choice programs generally. What is certain is the free path: tell customers the two windows by name, September for nominating and October for choosing, and make the reminder specific enough that the return visit actually happens.