The Telegraph Riverbend and Madison County Best of the Best: How Voting Works & How to Win

Not Chicago, not CommunityVotes: Alton and Madison County run their own ballot

Illinois's readers'-choice landscape isn't one format repeated statewide. The Chicago Reader runs its own citywide ballot, two Illinois markets use the CommunityVotes network through a local partner, and Alton runs something different again: a program organized directly by The Telegraph, covering both the Riverbend area around Alton and the wider Madison County market, on The Telegraph's own Second Street account.

Five confirmed editions sit behind the current cycle: 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, each living at its own dated web address rather than one page reused every year. The 2026 window is scheduled to open September 10 and run through October 29. Nothing published on that page splits the ballot into named categories or states how often one person may vote.

Confirm that last row on the live ballot each cycle rather than assume it matches a neighboring Illinois program's published rule.

Five straight dated pages, one growing local record of who entered

Each of the five confirmed editions lives at its own web address rather than a single page that gets edited in place every fall. The 2025, 2024, 2023 and 2022 versions are each still reachable at their own separately dated addresses, alongside the current 2026 page.

That pattern means a business researching this ballot can find last year's page without much trouble, but should never confuse it with the current one. Only the 2026 address accepts a new nomination or a new vote right now; the four earlier ones describe closed cycles from prior years.

What five years of separate pages does and doesn't establish

The Telegraph has kept this ballot running every year since at least 2022, longer than several of Illinois's other newspaper-run programs manage. What that run of pages skips over is just as telling: no printed roster of categories, no stated cap on repeat voting, and no list of past winners sits anywhere behind the five confirmed addresses.

A different shape from Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and Sauk Valley

Best of Chicago covers a major metro under the Chicago Reader's own masthead. CommunityVotes Peoria IL and CommunityVotes Rockford both run through the national CommunityVotes network rather than a local newspaper. Sauk Valley Favorites covers a separate north-central Illinois readership entirely. None of the four share an organizer, a platform account, or a results calendar with The Telegraph's Alton and Madison County ballot.

The same Second Street account behind this ballot separately runs an ongoing general sweepstakes with its own entry rules and its own timeline, unconnected to the Best of the Best readers'-choice format. Confusing the two means chasing a rule that was never written for this ballot.

How many categories run, and how often one person may vote, is not stated; confirm on the live ballot each cycle rather than borrow an answer from Chicago, Peoria, Rockford or Sauk Valley.

Building support across a seven-week window, not a single day

Five confirmed editions give a Madison County business more history to point to than many newer programs on this site, but that history says nothing about a published vote cap or category list, both of which stay unconfirmed. The safer approach is treating the whole September 10 through October 29 window as one continuous push rather than a single-day event.

Real customers, asked more than once across that span, are what actually move a ballot like this. Bots and duplicate accounts put an entry at risk regardless of how many past cycles a program can point to, five in this case. Is buying votes legal settles that question before any budget goes toward a sixth cycle, and award-vote campaign planning maps pacing onto a nominate-and-vote structure exactly like this one's.