OFFICIAL RULES

 

What is Best of Southwest Missouri?

Best of Southwest Missouri 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 who support, serve, and do business in the following counties:

• Vernon

• Barton

• Jasper

• Newton

• McDonald

• Barry

• Lawrence

• Dade

• Cedar

• Polk 

• Greene

• Christian

• Stone

• Taney

• Webster

• Dallas

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Do I Have to Register?

Nomination surveys require registration of basic information from the submitter for when we need to clarify an entry. 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 the deadline.

 

Registration may be necessary for the voting phase to promote fair voting. You may be asked for your name and email address.

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Can I Vote by Paper or in Person?

No. All nominations and voting are done through our website and link to our voting platform.

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How Does Nominating Work?

We rely on our audience to supply us with the names of outstanding people, businesses, and establishments in over 190 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, you can 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 Southwest Missouri.

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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 5 PM on Friday, December 29 to add nominations.

 

Businesses with multiple locations appear as a single nomination for the voting phase unless otherwise specified by the business.

 

Business associates and advertisers of NWA Media and any other owner-affiliated company are not given special treatment, including but not limited to our presenting sponsor.

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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.

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The nomination period begins Monday, December 11, 2023, at noon, and ends at 5 PM on Friday, December 29, 2023.

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Will Everyone who is Nominated be on the Ballot?

For a category to qualify for the ballot, there must be a minimum of 5 separate businesses that are competing for votes. If someone is nominated in a category they do not qualify for, we make reasonable accommodations to move the nominee to a similar category. Nominees are moved to the voting ballot.

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I’ve Been Nominated, What is Required of Me?

Businesses, organizations, or individuals that are nominated by our audience are 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.

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How are Votes Tabulated?

A third party tabulates nominations and votes. NWA Media and its affiliates do not know the results of the contest until after the votes are tabulated. In each category, our audience votes on their favorite nominee. You are permitted to vote in each category once per day. Businesses, institutions, individuals, and schools are encouraged to promote the contest to gain nominations and votes. Competitive advertising, special offers, and campaigns are permitted; however, NWA Media at its 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. Suspect votes may be disqualified from the count.

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Use of bots, robotic, repetitive, automatic, programmed, vote exchange websites, vote “farming”, scripts, or other automated means designed to circumvent the “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.

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Business associates and advertisers of NWA Media and any other owner-affiliated company are not given special treatment, including but not limited to our presenting sponsor.

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The regular voting period begins at noon on Monday, January 8, 2024, and ends at  5 PM on Friday, February 16, 2024.

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Can I “Write-In” a Business During Voting?

All nominations have to be verified before being placed on the final ballot. During the nomination process, we welcome all submissions.

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Our ballot is closed. However, we will consider late entries into an established category by request. All late entries must be received by Thursday, February 1st, 2024. All late entries must be emailed to Support@BestofSouthwestMissouri.com for consideration. 

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When will the Winners be Announced?

The names of the winners are posted and announced on Friday, May 10, 2024, at BestofSouthwestMissouri.com and honored in our Best of Southwest Missouri special winners' magazine. In the event of a tie in any category, more than one winner or runner-up may be awarded.

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Best of Southwest Missouri and the unique logos are the property of NWA Media and may only be used with express, written permission. Logos are licensed to winners at a marketing spend or direct payment of $995 or more. Best of Southwest Missouri merchandise does not count toward the logo license spend.

Questions about Best of Southwest Missouri can be directed to our support desk at Support@BestofSouthwestMissouri.com.

 

These are the complete Official Rules. Best of Southwest Arkansas is produced by NWA Media. The digital experience is powered by BestOfPrograms.com. Content ©2024 NWA Media. Technology ©2024 BestOfPrograms.com, part of NERUS Strategies LLC.