Best of Thomasville: How Voting Works & How to Win

Three confirmed editions, a live 2026 window, and one small naming gap worth knowing about

Thomasville, a Thomas County community of newspaper readers, currently has a live ballot: Best of Thomasville's 2026 window opened August 12 and runs through October 7. Two earlier editions back it, 2023 and 2024, each posted under the Thomasville Times-Enterprise's own Second Street account.

What is worth flagging honestly is that no page under this exact program name is confirmed for 2025. A differently worded Times-Enterprise ballot ran in that slot instead, so a business searching only for "Best of Thomasville 2025" would come up empty even though the paper kept running a readers'-choice program that year under another name, an easy detail to miss when comparing this year's entry against last year's results.

Treat that last row plainly: confirm on the live ballot each cycle, since a naming gap in the recent past is a real reason not to assume this year's rules will look identical to 2024's.

One newspaper's own ballot, not a shared statewide network

Best of Thomasville runs entirely inside the Thomasville Times-Enterprise's own Second Street account rather than through a network brand shared with other Georgia cities. The paper's own masthead, not a franchise name, sits at the top of the ballot.

None of those six other programs shares a results tally or a judging process with the Times-Enterprise's own ballot. A Thomasville business chasing recognition on several of these at once is really running several unconnected campaigns side by side, each judged by a different newsroom under different terms.

Thomasville and the rest of Thomas County

Thomasville is the seat of Thomas County, in the southwestern part of Georgia, known locally for its Victorian-era downtown and its rose gardens. The Times-Enterprise's own coverage area extends across the county rather than stopping at Thomasville's city limits, and its readership overlaps with several smaller Thomas County communities that share the same local newspaper, the same downtown shopping district, and the same annual civic calendar the paper covers alongside this ballot.

Nothing on Best of Thomasville's confirmed page draws that county line explicitly. A Thomas County business operating a short drive from downtown Thomasville, rather than inside it, has no published reason to assume the ballot is closed to it, and the Times-Enterprise's own subscriber base already reaches well past the city's own limits.

Building a push around a confirmed close date, not last year's habits

With October 7 already locked in, the practical move is lining up real customers willing to click through to thomasvilletimes-enterprise.secondstreetapp.com before that date, rather than assuming the still-unpublished category list or vote cap will match 2024's. The 2025 naming gap is itself a reminder that this program's shape can shift year to year.

Asking the same group of supporters a second time as October 7 approaches, rather than relying on one early message, is what actually moves a newspaper ballot like this one. Second Street infrastructure screens for irregular voting activity across every market it runs, and a flag here would cost a business more than a single missed nomination would, particularly with the 2025 naming gap already raising questions about how consistently this program is tracked year over year. Is buying votes legal draws that line clearly, buying votes online explains what outside help typically looks like for a combined nomination-and-voting format, and award-vote campaign planning is built around a readers'-choice shape like this one specifically.