'Best of' contest enters final week

Best of North Idaho voters, you’re on the clock. And you’ve got just seven days left to show support for your favorite local businesses.

At midnight, Feb. 4, the balloting will end for 2016 Best Of North Idaho. As of Thursday, 10,139 unique registered users had cast 152,699 votes. On average, voters have cast 15 votes each across 170 business categories.

“This is the second year we have utilized the expertise and voting platform of Second Street Media for online voting to ensure a fair voting process for this coveted Best Of recognition,” said Press Publisher Jim Thompson.

For more than a decade, Second Street Media has partnered with more than 3,000 media companies nationwide to manage and supervise online voting contests. In 2016, voting protocol is the same as 2015, allowing unique registered users to vote up to once per hour if they wish. This protocol evens the playing field for everyone, not just technical experts who know how to game the system by clearing their cookies and using fictitious user addresses, according to Second Street Media.

After Feb. 4, all votes will be electronically tallied with inaccurate votes being invalidated. Invalid votes would constitute a vote for a business in a category of business they do not offer.

This year’s winners will be announced in a special collectors’ edition of North Idaho Business Journal in March.

The Press will also debut a Best of North Idaho website at www.northidahobestof.com that will be interactive and live all year long at www.cdapress.com. Readers will be able to access the website on their desktop or mobile device and search for Best Of businesses by category, complete with Google mapping and comments.