Best Of The Stateline: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is Best of the Stateline and who runs it?

Best of the Stateline is a readers' choice contest in which the public names its favorite local businesses, organized by the Beloit Daily News, the daily newspaper of Beloit, Wisconsin. The ballot's own invitation sets the tone in a single line: "Vote for your favorite Stateline Businesses!!". Supporters, not judges, decide which businesses come out ahead, which places the program firmly in the best-of vertical alongside the newspaper's wider community coverage.

The ballot runs on Second Street, the platform the paper uses to power the vote. Beloit Daily News publishes the program at its own address on that platform, https://beloitdailynews.secondstreetapp.com/Best-of-the-Stateline-2025/ , which carried the 2025 edition. Everything a supporter needs during an open round, from the category slate to the submission form, sits on that page.

Because outcomes rest entirely on public picks, the program's character changes little from year to year even as its categories turn over. What stays fixed is the pairing of a hometown newsroom with a ballot that lets readers reward the businesses they already use.

Which editions have run, and when was the 2025 round open?

Best of the Stateline is a long-running annual program rather than a newcomer. Confirmed ballot years reach 2017, then resume at 2020 and continue without interruption through 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Outside announcements back the rhythm: a trophy page kept by Geronimo Hospitality Group credits the program with a hotel honor listed as "Beloit Daily News: Best of the Stateline, Hotel 2014-21", taking the story back to 2014, and a partner announcement notes that Lucy's #7 Burger Bar in downtown Beloit has won Best Burger honors in the awards "each of the past four years".

The live cycle's dates are just as concrete. The 2025 voting round opened on August 11, 2025 and closed on August 31, 2025, which is the only voting month the public dating shows for the program. Nomination or entry stages, if the paper separates them from voting, carry no published schedule.

What the published pages leave open is the ballot's finer shape. The slate of categories is not published ahead of the round, and any separate nomination stage is likewise unscheduled; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. That gap is routine for newspaper polls of this size, where the ballot doubles as the definitive listing while voting is underway.

One caution follows from that pattern: dates and structures seen on the 2025 ballot belong to 2025 alone. A supporter planning for the next edition treats the August window as history rather than promise until the paper publishes fresh dates.

How does a supporter actually vote in this ballot?

Mechanically, the exercise is simple. A supporter opens the 2025 ballot on Second Street, scrolls the business categories loaded for the year, and marks a favorite in each section worth answering. Submission happens on the page itself, and the paper's invitation to "Vote for your favorite Stateline Businesses!!" is the entire pitch: no essays, no registrations beyond what the form requests. The whole sequence, from opening the page to sending picks, stays inside the Beloit Daily News property on Second Street.

Format matters less than timing. Because the round spans a fixed, published window, anyone intending to participate needs to act inside it; a pick typed after the close has nowhere to land.

The ballot is built for ordinary web use, which means a phone browser handles it as comfortably as a desktop one. Supporters commonly work through it in a single pass, answering the categories they know and skipping the rest, since leaving a section blank carries no penalty and nobody scores completeness.

How does this poll sit beside Wisconsin's other readers' choice contests?

Reader-vote contests crowd Wisconsin's calendar, and Best of the Stateline occupies a distinctive corner of it. Sibling programs on this site show the spread: Best of Madison and Best of Milwaukee Readers' Choice serve large metros, Best of the Bay covers Green Bay, the Eau Claire Reader's Choice Awards speaks for its own city, and Janesville CommunityVotes plus Best of the Valley round out the map.

What separates the Stateline program is its scale of place rather than its format. Madison and Milwaukee polls compete for attention in markets packed with media options; a Beloit-centered ballot speaks to a tighter community where a daily newspaper remains a central civic voice. For a business deciding where its customers actually vote, that difference is decisive.

The shared makeup is nonetheless obvious. Every contest in the set turns on the same transaction: a publication asks its readers to name favorites, and local businesses campaign politely for the nod. A supporter moving between Wisconsin cities will recognize the drill immediately, whichever ballot is open.

Choosing between them as a voter

Most residents can reach only the ballots that cover where they spend money. For the Beloit market, Best of the Stateline is the natural home for these picks; the others matter when travel or relocation spreads a person's habits further afield.

How can a business rally support in the Stateline round?

A short public window concentrates everything into a single push. Customers who already favor a business will usually vote for it if asked plainly, so the practical playbook is direct: announce the ballot while it is open, name the exact category, and make the ask personal. Reminders near the close recover the people who meant to act and forgot.

On outside help, the published pages are silent for this poll: neither the 2025 ballot nor the paper's contest materials spell out a stance on purchased support. A business weighing paid help needs the newspaper's own contest terms first, then the general background at how to get more votes online, because what Beloit Daily News permits governs every other decision here.