2023 Readers’Choice People and Places ends Friday

This year’s Readers’ Choice voting will officially end on July 7, at 8:00 p.m. As of Sunday evening, there were well over a record 50,000 votes, with 1,412 participants voting this year. Each year the newspaper learns something new and tries to tweak it to make it better for the next year. Because of the popularity of the voting, we extended the deadline to vote. We received mixed reviews and next year will stick to a hard deadline.

A couple of years back the Journal-Sun moved away from the paper format because it was easy for people to swoop in and take all the newspapers so that they were the only ones who could vote. Additionally, it has always been a challenge to count hundreds of newspaper ballots, and many times the staff stayed late into the evening to make sure every vote was counted.

For those reasons, we decided to do the digital option. As it continues to grow, we learn something new every year. Many of the changes we make deal with refining the categories, but we continue to tweak things other things too. We also continue to adjust how voting is factored to make sure every vote counts.

On Friday, we will calculate the ballots and post the winners in the newspaper later in July. Between that time, we will visit area businesses to give them their certificates. There are several winners, and it takes time to get around to the area businesses. Once contacted businesses will have the opportunity to put in an ad thanking the public for voting for them. If you would like to put an ad in regardless of the results you can contact sales@casscountynow.com or call us at 903-796-7133.

You may have noticed this year that some of the business’s information was on the ballot. A few of the businesses decided to pay to have their logo and contact information on the Ballot after it was announced on social media.

The Journal Sun would like to thank everyone who participated in the event. We hope to continue to make it better every year. If you have any suggestions, you can email shawn@casscountynow.com.