For The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Peoples Choice Award: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the People's Choice ballot is and who publishes it

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award, as Wisconsin readers encounter it, is a public-vote feature published by WTMJ-TV, the television station whose news site is tmj4.com. The vote is carried on tmj4.com itself rather than farmed out to an outside contest service, and that matters for anyone trying to find it: there is no separate contest domain, no platform brand in the address and no middleman between the reader and the vote. The station's newsroom frames the ballot with its own copy, introducing the finalist photographs with the line "These images are stunning! Which are your favorites?"

In format terms this belongs to the same best-of family as Wisconsin's other public votes, even though its subject is photography rather than local businesses. A supporter's task is the same as it is on any pick-a-favorite ballot: look at the options, choose one, submit. What separates it from a chamber or magazine best-of contest is scale and scope. Instead of dozens of categories covering restaurants, dentists and contractors, this ballot is a single award attached to a single set of wildlife photographs.

Facts at a glance

Everything on this page comes from the ballot page the station itself publishes. Where that page is silent, this guide says so plainly rather than filling the gap with an assumption.

The dated record: which editions ran and when voting closes

Editions are on the books for 2023 and 2024. Both are anchored to the same part of the calendar. The 2024 round is the one with a printed deadline on the station's page, where readers were told to vote for their favorite before Jan. 31, 2024. That close-of-January pattern is the single most useful dated fact on the page, because it tells a supporter roughly where in the year to look for the ballot without claiming more precision than the station has published.

The wider photography program the award belongs to runs its own international People's Choice round as well, and the page covering that round printed the window as: "Online voting is open from 10.00am Wednesday 29 November, until 14.00pm (GMT) on Wednesday 31 January 2023." A Wisconsin reader should treat the station's own deadline, not the international one, as governing the tmj4.com ballot, since the two sit on different sites with different closes.

Several things the station has not printed deserve honest mention. The ballot page carries no list of how the finalist images were chosen, no per-person vote limit and no eligibility wording. It also names no date for the next edition; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Anyone planning outreach around a future round should therefore anchor to the station's page in January rather than to anything printed here, because the station can move the window without notice.

How a supporter votes on the tmj4.com ballot today

Taking part could hardly be less complicated, and that simplicity is exactly why the ballot spreads. A supporter loads the page on tmj4.com, scrolls through the finalist wildlife photographs, and casts a vote for a favorite. No form needs completing, no essay needs writing and no category needs finding; the entire interaction is one pick among images, made inside the station's published window.

Because the vote is carried on the station's own site, the steps a supporter follows are the steps any site visitor follows. Load the page, view the images, select a favorite, submit. If the station has attached a confirmation step or a thank-you screen for the current edition, it will show up at the moment of submission, and behavior beyond that point is defined only by whatever the live ballot itself does.

Two practical observations follow from this format. First, the ballot's appeal depends on the photographs themselves, so a supporter is choosing a visual, not a business they patronize; that changes how persuasion works, favoring a direct link and a strong image recommendation over a local-loyalty pitch. Second, the ballot page states nothing about repeat voting by the same supporter, so no routine of daily returns can be recommended from here; the live page governs that question for the current cycle. What is certain is the close date shape the confirmed editions establish, and a supporter who wants their pick to count should act inside whatever window the station prints for the edition in front of them.

How this ballot sits beside Wisconsin's other public votes

Wisconsin readers meet several different public-vote formats in a year, and this award is the odd one out in a useful way. The state's best-known ballots are city business contests: Best of Milwaukee Readers' Choice, Best of Madison, Best of the Bay in Green Bay, Best of the Valley around Appleton, the Eau Claire Reader's Choice Awards and Janesville CommunityVotes. Each of those is a multi-category contest where local businesses campaign for support over weeks or months.

The People's Choice ballot runs on a different model altogether. WTMJ-TV publishes it on its own news site, the field is a set of wildlife photographs rather than local merchants, and the decision is a single pick rather than a tour through category pages. A supporter who arrives from one of the city contests expecting the same structure will find something much shorter: one page, one choice, one window.

That difference matters for whoever is backing a finalist image. The city contests reward sustained local campaigning because a business can mobilize customers across many categories and a long calendar. A photography ballot rewards speed and shareability instead, because the window is short and the choice is immediate. Support for a finalist image is won with direct links and a memorable photograph, not with months of storefront signage, and that is the strategic difference this program's neighbours never ask its supporters to make.

Strengthening support for a finalist image

Backing one photograph in this ballot is a short campaign, not a long one. The single most effective move is a direct link: send supporters straight to the tmj4.com ballot page so the finalist images are one click away, and name the specific photograph you want them to pick, since the ballot is a favorite-image choice rather than a search task. A message that says which image and why, sent as a personal recommendation, outperforms any bare link a supporter receives without context.

Timing matters more here than on Wisconsin's month-long business contests, because the confirmed rounds closed at the end of January. A reminder sent near the close catches supporters while the window is still open and the choice is fresh. The ballot page publishes no rule text about outside help, purchased support or voting software, so anyone weighing those options should read the organizer's live wording first, then the background in our guide to getting more votes online. No third-party approach can promise a result in a vote whose tally only the station sees; the realistic edge comes from a clear ask, a direct link and a reminder inside the window.