For The Pliny For Volcanic Event Of The Year 6670: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year is and who runs it

The Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year is a reader award run by Discover, the science magazine publisher whose organisation is registered in Wisconsin. Unlike the city readers-choice contests that dominate the state's ballot calendar, this programme has no local business roster at all. It asks a single question each cycle: which volcanic event deserved the year's attention? The ballot lives on Discover's own website, not on an external voting platform, and it sits inside the publisher's volcano coverage rather than in a standalone contest portal.

The name honours Pliny the Elder, the Roman author who died in the eruption that buried Pompeii, and the award carries that scholarly tone into its framing. The 2016 ballot post asked readers to reflect on Colima volcano's eruption as they voted, which tells you the programme is written for eruption enthusiasts rather than for a general shopping audience. Each supporter chooses a top three, a format that rewards events with a broad base of admirers instead of a single passionate faction.

Facts at a glance

The dated facts: which editions ran and when the polls close

Three edition years are confirmed for this programme: 2016, 2025 and 2026. The 2016 ballot is the edition with the fullest published detail, because its page carries the deadline in plain text. The polls in that cycle stayed open until January 5 at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, and the publisher promised to count down the top volcanoes right after the new year began. That gives the programme a winter rhythm: a ballot posted at the end of one year, a close in early January, and a results post immediately afterwards.

The history reaches further back than the confirmed edition list. Discover's own pages name a Pliny winner for every year from 2009 through 2016: Sarychev Peak in 2009, Eyjafjallajökull in 2010, Puyehue-Cordón Caulle in 2011, Tolbachik in 2012, Etna in 2013, Holuhraun-Barðarbunga in 2014, Colima in 2015 and Bogoslof in 2016. That published winners line is the strongest evidence that the award is a genuine annual tradition rather than a one-off promotion.

What the publisher has not printed in advance is the shape of the newest cycle: the exact opening date, the closing deadline and the category roster for the current ballot are absent from the published page; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How a supporter votes on the Pliny ballot today

Voting is deliberately simple because the whole ballot runs on Discover's own site. Everything starts when a supporter reaches the ballot post, reads the publisher's introduction to the year's volcanic activity, and chooses a top three from the events under discussion. There is no separate registration step described on the ballot page, no nomination round to wait for, and no third-party form to fill in. The 2016 post framed the choice as picking the three events you consider the year's best, which means a supporter's ballot carries three names rather than one.

The timing matters as much as the mechanics. The only printed deadline is the 2016 one, a January 5 close at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, and the publisher's promise to count down the winners right after the new year tells you results follow quickly. A supporter who waits past early January risks finding the poll shut. Because the newest cycle's dates stay off the published pages, the practical habit is to check the ballot itself as soon as a new Pliny post appears and vote while the poll is open.

One more practical note: the ballot is part of the publisher's editorial coverage, so it reads as a blog post with a vote attached. Reading the post itself is part of voting, since the events under consideration are introduced there.

How this ballot sits beside Wisconsin's other reader votes

Wisconsin's ballot calendar is crowded with city readers-choice programmes, and this award is the odd one out. The state's registry ties Discover to Wisconsin as its publisher, yet the Pliny ballot covers volcanic events worldwide, so its audience is not bounded by any city line. The neighbouring programmes on this site are all local best-of contests: Best of Milwaukee Readers' Choice, Best of Madison, Best of the Valley in Appleton, the Eau Claire Reader's Choice Awards, Best of the Bay in Green Bay and Janesville CommunityVotes.

Those six share a shape: local businesses, category rosters, and a nomination round before voting. The Pliny ballot shares none of that. It has one question, a top-three answer format, and a subject matter that has nothing to do with Wisconsin commerce. For a supporter, the difference is practical. A city contest rewards mobilising a local customer base, while the Pliny vote rewards reaching the community of eruption readers who follow the publisher's coverage. Strategies built for one do not transfer cleanly to the other, which is why this page treats the two families separately even though they share a state.

Strengthening support for a volcanic event on this ballot

Because each supporter names a top three, the goal is to be on enough ballots, not to be the sole pick. The organic route is sharing the ballot link with people who already follow eruption news and asking them to include your favoured event among their three. The publisher's own framing, reflecting on the year's eruptions before choosing, means a short case for why an event mattered can travel well with the link. Discover has not printed a rule about outside help or a per-person vote limit for this ballot, so the published instruction of one top three per supporter is the only stated constraint. For a wider view of support methods across public votes, see award vote support.