So, we’re calling our own election.
Voting for the 22nd annual Best of Halifax Readers’ Choice Awards will officially kick-start on June 1, and as we gear up to open the polls we wanted to keep you up to date with some changes we’ll be making to the survey.
In a constant attempt to better the Best of Halifax, this year we’ll be spitting the voting period in two. Yes, you'll get two chances to vote. The first being the Nomination Ballot.
From June 1 to July 14 the same fill-in-the-blank survey you’re used to will be open for all voters. It’ll include the same 200+ categories in Food & Drink, Shopping & Services, Arts & Music and City Life. In this six week voting period absolutely EVERYBODY is a candidate to be nominated. And by everybody we mean local people and businesses. Arguably, this is where votes and campaigning matters the most.
On July 14 the polls will close for two weeks of tabulation at The Coast headquarters, and will re-open for the Final Ballot from August 1 to September 15. This time, the candidates will be whittled down. Each category will include six nominees—the names that earned the most votes from you on the Nomination Ballot—plus the incumbent, the gold winner in the category from the 2016 survey. (Past winners won't carry over in categories like New Restaurant, New Business and many of the arts categories that represent a particular year. Instead, they'll get their final ballots will list the seven nominees with the most votes.)
For an example, consider the Best Coffee category. There are probably 100 cafes and coffee shops around town, and every single one of them could be put forward on the Nomination Ballot. That is, someone could type the shop’s name into the Best Coffee section of the survey. Then when nominations close, there will be 100 suggestions for Best Coffee.
But we need to get those 100 down to a list of six nominees for the second round of voting. So we count to find the shops with the highest number of nominations, and the top six go on to the Final Ballot, along with the gold winner from last year’s BOH. And during the Final Ballot, voters make their single favourite Best Coffee choice from a list of seven options.
The Final Ballot is open to all voters, even if you already voted in the preliminary nomination round. It’ll be a very easy, mobile-friendly, multiple choice vote. While we encourage campaigning—this is an election after all— we’re not onboard with any kind of ballot stuffing (one ballot per person, please) or exchange of freebies or discounts for votes. Let’s play fair.
NOMINATION BALLOT VOTING
June 1 - July 14
FINAL BALLOT VOTING
August 1 - September 15
BOH RESULTS PUBLISHED IN THE COAST
November 3
Find our Best of Halifax FAQs here.
And last year's Best of Halifax results here.
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