For local newspapers
Run your Best Of contest without the chaos.
Nominations, voting and winners in one place your readers can use from their phones. Set it up in an afternoon, and it runs itself on the dates you choose.
Free to build and preview. You only pay when you take a contest live.
Your Best Of contest should be the highlight of the year. Too often it's a headache.
Ballots by hand
Clipping print ballots, typing them in, and counting into the night, while your reporters have a paper to put out.
Spreadsheets full of duplicates
"Joe's Diner", "Joes Dinner" and "JOES DINER" are the same place. A form doesn't know that, so you sort it out by hand, category by category.
Results you can't fully trust
One business emails its whole customer list, someone votes from fifty addresses, and you're left wondering whether the winner really won.
Your readers' favorite businesses deserve a fair count, and your paper deserves a contest that pays off, not one that eats weeks of your staff's time.
We get it. We build tools for independent publishers.
Golden Ballot does one job: running local Best Of contests. It takes care of the parts that eat your staff's time, like matching spellings, catching ballot stuffing and opening each round on time, so your team can focus on the stories and the sales.
It works with any website. Your ballot lives on your own domain or ours, and a card drops into any page you publish.
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Duplicates merged for you
Spellings that match are grouped automatically, and likely duplicates are flagged for a one-click merge.
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Built-in fraud checks
Email confirmation, throwaway-address blocking, and holds on suspicious voting for your review.
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Runs on your schedule
Nominations and voting open and close on your dates. Daily voting resets at midnight in your timezone.
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Live results
Watch the counts by category, then publish winners to your ballot page and website in one click.
Three steps to a contest that runs itself
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1
Paste your categories
Paste your list of sections and categories, even a hundred of them, and your ballot is built. Pick your brand colour and preview it.
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2
Set your dates
Choose when nominations and voting open and close. Readers confirm their email with a quick code and vote from their phones.
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3
Announce your winners
Merge duplicates, pick finalists, review anything suspicious, then publish winners to your ballot and your site.
Without a better way
- Another season of hand-counting and late nights
- A winners issue you're not quite sure about
- Local businesses asking why they lost to a ballot stuffer
- Thousands of engaged readers, and no way to stay in touch with them
With Golden Ballot
- Readers come back every day to vote for their favorites
- A clean, defensible winners list your staff can stand behind
- Businesses proud to promote their win, and your paper with it
- A list of readers who asked to hear from you
One simple plan
$1,490 a year
per paper. Run as many contests as you like.
- ✓ Unlimited contests, categories, nominations and votes
- ✓ Duplicate merging, finalists and live results
- ✓ Fraud checks and a review queue for suspicious votes
- ✓ Your own domain and an embed card for your site
- ✓ Build and preview free; pay when you go live
Make this year's Best Of your best yet.
Build your ballot today. It's free until you go live.
Build your ballot free