TribLIVE Best of the Best Allegheny Southwest: How Voting Works & How to Win

A Second Street address, not a magazine's readers' poll

Set next to Pennsylvania's other "best of" programs, TribLIVE Best of the Best Allegheny Southwest reads differently from the start. Best of the 'Burgh, Best of Philly, and the other magazine-run polls each answer to their own editorial publisher; Allegheny Southwest instead lives on Tribune-Review's Second Street account, the same infrastructure used for newspaper ballots run in dozens of other markets nationally.

None of the six comparison programs share a judging pool, a results page, or an account with Allegheny Southwest. A strong showing on one buys nothing on the others, since each keeps its own rulebook and its own results entirely apart from this one.

What three confirmed editions actually establish

Three editions, 2023 through 2025, are the full documented history here, each opening its own dated address rather than reusing last year's link. The most recent one ran July 20 through October 6, 2025.

Everything below that dated window is unconfirmed rather than assumed away. The organizer's own navigation also names an Allegheny East, an Allegheny North, and a Westmoreland address on the same account, each apparently run as its own separate ballot rather than pooled into one combined result. A business weighing Allegheny Southwest against one of those other regional addresses should treat each as a distinct entry point with its own dated window, not as interchangeable doors into a single shared count.

Why the unpublished pieces stay unpublished on this page

A magazine-run poll typically prints its categories months ahead of a deadline. Allegheny Southwest hasn't followed that pattern across three editions: no category roster and no per-voter cap show up on the confirmed page, and the site's own navigation text mixes menu labels with award language closely enough that treating it as an actual ballot list would be a mistake.

Filling that gap with a number pulled from a different Second Street client, in a different state, would not make it true for Allegheny Southwest. The one place that answer can come from is the live page itself, so confirm on the live ballot each cycle instead of settling for a guess borrowed from a program that has nothing to do with this one, no matter how similar the two ballots look on paper.

Planning a push around the confirmed window, not a guess

Three editions is not enough runway to point back at a long list of past winners, so the more useful plan is acting inside the window that's already confirmed, July 20 through October 6 on the most recent cycle, rather than waiting on a pattern this program hasn't built yet.

Direct, repeated outreach to real supporters while the window is open changes how an entry stands here, regardless of what the next stage ends up looking like. Automated or padded activity risks the whole entry, and that risk is steeper for a three-edition program than for one with a longer confirmed history behind it.

A business weighing whether a nomination push is worth the effort should separate two questions that get blurred together too easily: whether asking real customers to vote is worthwhile, and whether inflating that support artificially is worth the risk. The first is a normal marketing decision; the second can cost an entry its standing on a ballot that has only three editions to lean on. is buying votes legal lays out where that line sits before any money goes toward a nomination push. Buying votes online explains how outside support usually gets arranged for a ballot that nominates first and votes second, and award-vote campaign planning is shaped around exactly this kind of contest, from the first nomination through whatever voting stage follows it.