ABOUT THE 2021 BEST OF THE 217 PROGRAM
OFFICIAL RULES
What is Best of the 217?
The 2021 Best of the 217 invites, engages and allows you, our audience, to recognize the best businesses, organizations and people in our area. Our focus is on businesses and professionals that support, serve and do business in East Central Illinois.
Do I Have to Register?
Nomination surveys require registration of basic information from the submitter on the occasion we need to clarify an entry. However, we do offer you the opportunity to share your name and email with us so that we can keep you up to date on the program. You may submit your nominees in any given topic area and return to complete the survey any time before deadline.
Registration may be necessary in the voting phase to promote fair voting. You may be asked for your name and email address.
Can I Vote by Paper or in Person?
No. All nominations and voting are done through our website and links to our voting platform.
How Does Nominating Work?
We rely on our audience to supply us with the names of outstanding people, businesses and establishments in each of the 215 categories. Once the nominees are finalized, our audience is asked to vote on one choice in each category. Per our guidelines, you are allowed to nominate without limits and during voting, vote once every 24 hours.
Our audience and business owners nominate their favorites by selecting one of 9 topic areas Agriculture, Eat & Drink, Education, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, Motors, Services, Shopping, Things to Do. Nominees should be individuals and businesses that serve the East Central Illinois area.
Nominating is as simple as entering a name and city in text entry fields. It’s best, but not required, to provide additional information on the nominee so that we can verify them (Phone number, address, URL). You may return any time before Friday, August 27th, 5:00PM to add nominations.
Businesses with multiple locations will appear as a single nomination for the voting phase, unless otherwise specified by the business.
Business associates and advertisers of Illini Radio Group and any other owner affiliated company are not given special treatment.
Users are not required to nominate in all categories, but must submit the nomination form by hitting the "submit" button at the bottom of the page. Users are permitted to nominate a single business in more than one category.
The nomination period begins Monday, August 16th, 12:00PM, and ends at Friday, August 27th, 5:00PM.
Will Everyone that is Nominated be on the Ballot?
For a category to qualify for the ballot, there must be a minimum of 4 separate businesses that are competing for votes. If a category is not qualifying, we will make reasonable accommodations to move the nominee to a similar category. Once a category is qualified, we will ballot each individual business that has been nominated.
I’ve Been Nominated, What is Required of Me?
Businesses, organizations or individuals that are nominated by our audience will be placed on our ballot after they are verified. Should a business earn enough votes to be in the top two they may be required to complete a simple online questionnaire with basic business information including, Name, Location(s), Year Established, Business Hours, Phone Number, Web Address (if any) and submit or make available a photo of the business, organization or individual. There is no cost or obligation to participate.
How are Votes Tabulated?
Nominations and votes are tabulated by a third-party. Illini Radio Group and it's affiliates do not know the results of the contest until after the votes are tabulated. In each category, readers vote on their favorite nominee. Readers are permitted to vote in each category once per day. Businesses, institutions, individuals and schools are encouraged to promote the contest in order to gain nominations and/or votes. Competitive advertising, special offers, campaigns are permitted; however, Illini Radio Group at it’s sole discretion, reserves the right to exclude from the competition any businesses or individuals that engage in activities intended to “rig” or “fix” the voting process. Votes that are suspect may be disqualified in the count.
Use of bots, robotic, repetitive, automatic, programmed, vote exchange websites, vote “farming”, scripts or other automated means designed to circumvent “one ballot per person per day” rule, are not allowed. Contestants discovered using these methods for vote acceleration are subject to suspected votes being disqualified without notice, and the jeopardy of the Contestant being completely disqualified and removed from the competition.
Business associates and advertisers of Illini Radio Group and any other owner affiliated company are not given special treatment.
The regular voting period begins at Monday, September 13th, 12:00PM and ends at Friday, October 1st, 5:00PM.
Can I “Write-In” a Business During Voting?
All nominations have to be verified prior to being placed on the final ballot. During the nomination process, we welcome all submissions.
Our ballot is a closed ballot, however; we will consider late entries into an established category by request. All late entries must be received by Monday, September 21st. All late entries must be emailed to support@bestofthe217.com for consideration.
When will Winners be Announced?
The names of the winners will be posted and announced on Thursday, December 2nd. All winners will be honored in our Best of the 217 special winners magazine on Thursday, December 2ns. In the event of a tie in any category, more than one winner or runner-up may be awarded.