Best of Twin Tiers Community's Choice Awards: How Voting Works & How to Win

Two Gannett ballots, one platform, and a state line running through the middle

yourchoiceawards.com/twintiers. That's the Elmira Star-Gazette's own Gannett-run ballot, and its market slug alone tells you something the ballot for a single city wouldn't: this program is built around a cross-border region, not one town. "Twin Tiers" pairs New York's Southern Tier with Pennsylvania's Northern Tier, both anchored loosely around Elmira and Corning.

That same underlying yourchoiceawards.com system runs the separate Binghamton Community's Choice Awards one county east, under its own /binghamton slug. Same platform, same publisher family, two entirely separate ballots with no shared nominee pool confirmed between them.

A business near the county line has to be precise about which slug it's actually voting on, since the two ballots look similar at a glance but count toward entirely separate results.

Binghamton vs. Twin Tiers: same system, different footprint

Confusing these two costs real votes, especially for a business that sits close enough to either coverage area to plausibly qualify for both. The Binghamton ballot names one city directly in its branding. This one names a region instead, reflecting a service area that reaches across a state line rather than staying inside one municipality.

Why the shared platform doesn't mean shared rules

Both ballots run on yourchoiceawards.com, but nothing in the confirmed record guarantees identical vote caps, category structures, or close dates between the two. Gannett's platform has been observed to vary details by market, so a business that ran a Binghamton campaign shouldn't assume the Twin Tiers ballot works identically.

A business that legitimately serves both areas should treat these as two separate campaigns with two separate links, not one shared reminder post.

Elmira and Corning pull from different local economies

Elmira itself carries a manufacturing and Chemung County government-town character, a steadier, less tourism-driven local economy than some of its neighbors. Corning, a short drive northwest, runs on a different rhythm entirely, anchored by Corning Incorporated's headquarters and the Corning Museum of Glass, which pulls a visitor stream well beyond the local resident base.

Horseheads and Big Flats sit closer to the commercial corridor between the two, drawing shoppers and diners from both directions. Southport, just south of Elmira proper, and Painted Post, near Corning, round out the smaller commercial pockets inside this coverage area.

None of that changes how the ballot itself works. It changes when a campaign lands hardest: a Corning business tied to museum foot traffic sees a different seasonal pattern than an Elmira business built on steady local repeat customers.

What's confirmed, and what shouldn't be assumed

The operator, the shared Gannett platform, and the Twin Tiers cross-border coverage area are all confirmed. A specific category list, a vote cap, and exact nomination or close dates are not published outside the live yourchoiceawards.com/twintiers page, and this guide won't invent them to fill space.

"Nominated" is the accurate word before the Star-Gazette actually publishes a result. A specific claim, "Best of Twin Tiers 2026, [category]," holds up because it cites a checkable outcome; a broad "Twin Tiers' best" statement with no year or category attached does not, and risks overstating something never published in that form.

Running a campaign across a two-state region

Point supporters at the exact yourchoiceawards.com/twintiers listing, named specifically, since a vague "vote for us on Community's Choice" leaves a supporter unsure whether that means this ballot or the separate Binghamton one nearby. Precision matters more in a market where two similar-looking Gannett programs run side by side.

If the business draws visitor traffic tied to Corning's museum season, timing a push around that calendar can reach a wider, less locally-anchored audience than a flat, evenly-paced campaign would. An Elmira business built on steady local repeat customers should instead lean on that consistency rather than chase a seasonal spike that doesn't apply to it.

A vote-promotion service can help route real supporters to the correct /twintiers listing and hold a steady reminder cadence through the cycle. See how online contest votes work for the general mechanics, is buying votes legal before committing any budget, and award-style vote campaigns for pacing advice that applies directly to a readers'-choice push like this one. New York City runs its own separate set of borough ballots on an unrelated track entirely; see Best of the Bronx for how that downstate model differs from a two-state regional ballot like this.