How to Win Best of Des Moines: Nominations, Finals and Voting
Best of Des Moines voting is won by customers who type your exact name into Cityview's readers' poll, which accepts one submission per voter by IP address. There is no nomination round: Cityview says everyone is eligible and nothing is pay to play. The 2027 edition opened September 1, 2026 and closes at 5 p.m. on November 22, 2026. Repeat submissions are found and thrown out, and nobody can promise a win.
By Victor Brown · Last updated
Who runs Best of Des Moines voting, and who decides it?
Cityview runs Best of Des Moines as a readers' poll on its own website, and readers settle the results. For the 2027 edition the organizer says there is no nomination process and no pay-to-play arrangement: every business is eligible from the first day, and customers simply type a name into the survey form.
The form itself sits on SurveyMonkey. Cityview asks people to enter names of businesses or people and to spell them precisely, so the results sort properly. That one instruction carries more weight than it looks. A shop typed three different ways can split its own support into three short lines, and nothing in the published rules says Cityview will merge them for you.
The poll has a long memory. In our tracking, Best of Des Moines shows an edition in 9 distinct years between 2018 and 2026, and the database expects the next one in 2027. Cityview even titled its February 2026 editor's column 'A poll for the decades'. Long-running polls change their small print between editions, though. Treat each year's rules page as a new document, not a copy of the last one.
When does the Des Moines readers' poll open and close?
Cityview's 2027 Best of Des Moines poll opened on September 1, 2026 and closes at 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 22, 2026. That is a window of 82 days, close to three times the 28-day median our tracking finds across 108 dated Iowa voting promotions from 2016 to 2025.
The September start fits the organizer's own history. In our tracking, 2 of the 4 dated rows for Cityview open in September, and the most common closing month among those rows is November, at 1 of 4. Iowa as a whole leans later: of 248 recurring programs with a recorded opening month, October is the most common, with 41 of them.
A long window changes the job. Twenty-eight days rewards a burst of reminders; 82 days with one submission per voter rewards reach. Once a regular has filled in the form, asking again adds nothing to the count, so the work is finding the next customer who hasn't, week after week, right up to the close. And 5 p.m. on a Sunday comes earlier than most people expect. I'd treat the Saturday before as the real deadline.
Is there a nomination stage or finalist cut in Des Moines?
No nomination stage exists in Cityview's 2027 Best of Des Moines poll: the organizer states that everyone is eligible and readers just vote. The rules quoted on Cityview's page describe one voting period, September 1 to November 22, 2026, and mention no finalist list or second round.
For an owner who has entered other city polls, that removes a step and adds a risk. A nomination round elsewhere tells you early whether customers spell your name the same way. In Des Moines, the first time you see how the names sorted is when results come out. Settling the spelling before anyone is asked does the work a nomination round would have done.
Before the first customer is asked, four details deserve a written answer that every staff member shares:
- The trading name customers actually know, not the legal entity name on the lease.
- Whether an article, an ampersand or a neighborhood tag belongs in that name.
- One short sentence staff can say at the register, with the spelling printed on a card beside it.
- Who answers a customer who cannot find the SurveyMonkey form or asks when it closes.
What Cityview's rules forbid: repeat entries, fraud and pay-to-play
Cityview's 2027 rules allow one submission per voter, identified by IP address, and say the organizer checks for multiple entries and throws out attempts to cheat. The same page reserves Cityview's right to discard any submission it deems fraudulent, and the SurveyMonkey form repeats the limit as one entry per person.
Enforcement is more than a sentence on a rules page. In the February 2026 editor's column, Cityview said it catches repeat voting with its own technology, AI included, and throws those votes out just as the rules promised. Read that next to the IP clause and the practical meaning is plain: a counter tablet, a shared office computer or an employee filling in forms for customers all produce repeat submissions from one address, which is exactly what the check removes.
Rewards are the open question. The 2027 clauses quoted from the rules page do not mention incentives. The same editor's column describes businesses encouraging customers to take part, notes that some offer incentives, and calls that smart. An editor's opinion in a column is not a rule, and a later rules page can say otherwise. I'd put the question to Cityview in writing before tying a free coffee or a discount to the ask.
Paying Cityview for a place in the poll is not an option either: the organizer says no pay-to-play scheme exists and every business is eligible.
How Des Moines owners win the readers' poll without breaking rules
Des Moines businesses win Cityview's readers' poll by reaching more separate customers than their rivals do, each typing the same exact name once between September 1 and November 22, 2026. With one submission per voter by IP address, the count measures how many people cared enough to fill in the form, not how often anyone asked.
The useful question is where your customers already are. Receipts. A sign by the register. The email list, the social accounts people already follow, the newsletter that goes out anyway. Each one carries the same spelling and the same plain request, and a reminder goes only to people who say they haven't done it yet.
Example scenario (illustrative - not a client result): a neighborhood restaurant settles its spelling in August, prints it on table cards and receipts when the poll opens, mentions it once in its newsletter, and spends the following weeks asking only guests who say they have not filled in the form. No staff tablet, no reward until Cityview answers the question in writing, and a last reminder on the Saturday before the Sunday close.
What fails is just as easy to name. Swap threads with other businesses, relatives filling in forms for one another, a family taking turns on one laptop: each runs into the IP clause or the one-entry-per-person line, and Cityview has said publicly that it throws such submissions out.
What Voting Now can add to a Des Moines entry, and what it cannot
Voting Now runs paid promotion for a Des Moines poll entry: ads, native PR, partner groups and bloggers, and its own social accounts, all aimed at real people in and around Des Moines who might choose to fill in Cityview's form. We do not sell contest votes, and nobody can promise a Best of Des Moines win.
Promotion only helps a poll shaped like this one when the rules leave room for it. The clauses quoted from Cityview's 2027 page cap submissions and discard fraud, and they say nothing about an entrant advertising its own entry; the editor's column openly praises businesses that encourage customers. We still read the edition's rules with the client first and turn down the poll if a clause appears that rules out paid help for entrants.
The work is priced the way advertisers price leads, with a quote for the poll promotion agreed before anything runs. If you have a Des Moines entry, send the poll link for a free analysis, and we will say whether paid promotion for the poll makes sense or whether the free route is enough on its own.
| Stage | Rule to verify | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Before the poll opens | No nomination step; Cityview says everyone is eligible from September 1, 2026. | Settle the exact business name and print it before the first customer is asked. |
| The SurveyMonkey entry form | Names of businesses or people, spelled precisely so the results sort properly. | Put the spelling on receipts, signs and posts, identical everywhere it appears. |
| One submission per voter | One per voter by IP address, and one entry per person on the form. | Ask each customer once; a second request to the same person adds nothing. |
| A tablet at the counter | Multiple entries from one IP address are checked for and thrown out. | Skip any shared device; customers fill in the form on their own phones. |
| Rewards for customers | The quoted rules are silent; the editor's column calls incentives smart as opinion. | Ask Cityview in writing and keep the reply before attaching any reward. |
| Fraud review by Cityview | Cityview may discard any submission it deems fraudulent and uses AI among its checks. | Keep a simple record of where and how customers were asked. |
| The final weekend | Voting runs through 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 22, 2026. | Send the last reminder on Saturday, when people still have time to act. |
Step by step
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Save the 2027 rules page
Screenshot Cityview's Best of Des Moines 2027 rules with the date visible. The one-per-IP clause and the 5 p.m. Sunday close are the two lines every employee should know without looking.
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Fix one spelling
Agree on the exact business name customers will type into the SurveyMonkey form, and print it the same way on receipts, signs and posts, so every submission sorts into a single line.
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Ask each customer once
One submission per voter means a second request to the same person adds nothing to the count. Note who has filled in the form and spend reminders on the people who haven't.
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Keep devices personal
Submissions from one IP address are checked, and repeats are thrown out. Customers fill in the form on their own phones, in their own time, never on a tablet or computer the shop provides.
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Clear rewards in writing
Before tying a discount or a freebie to the request, ask Cityview whether the 2027 edition allows it, and keep the reply. The editor's column is commentary; the rules page is what Cityview enforces.
Questions and answers
How does a Des Moines shop win local business awards from readers?
A Des Moines shop wins reader-decided local business awards by getting many separate customers to type one exact name into the organizer's form. In Cityview's poll each voter counts once by IP address, so reach beats repetition. Settle the spelling, ask every customer once, and keep rewards out until the organizer confirms them in writing. Other Des Moines programs set their own rules, so read each one before asking anyone.
Does the Des Moines approach help you get Best of Omaha?
The habits carry over to Best of Omaha, but Cityview's rules do not. Omaha's poll answers to its own organizer, and its limits, dates and any nomination step have to be read from that organizer's page. What transfers from Des Moines is method: one exact name, one honest request per customer, no shared devices, and written answers to open questions before any reward is offered.
Would the Cityview method win Best of Boston as well?
Best of Boston follows its own organizer's rules, not Cityview's, so no single method wins both. Before reusing anything learned in Des Moines, find out whether Boston's poll has a nomination round, how often a reader may choose, and who picks the winners. The Des Moines discipline still travels well: one spelling, a plain request, and nothing that produces repeat submissions from one address.
How is getting nominated for Best of Las Vegas different from Des Moines?
Des Moines has no nomination step at all: Cityview says every business is eligible and readers simply vote in its 2027 poll. A poll that does run a nomination round adds an earlier deadline, when customers must name you before the main count begins. For Las Vegas, the dates and any threshold come from that organizer's own rules; the Des Moines calendar says nothing about them.
When does Cityview's Best of Des Moines 2026 voting close?
Voting in the edition Cityview names Best of Des Moines 2027 closes at 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 22, 2026. That edition opened on September 1, 2026, so the poll held in the autumn of 2026 carries the following year's name. A Sunday-afternoon deadline catches people out, and a reminder on the Saturday before is the safer last call.
Is the Des Moines people's choice award the same as Best of Des Moines?
No. Best of Des Moines is Cityview's own readers' poll, while a people's choice award in Des Moines can come from any organizer that lets the public decide. In our tracking, 7 recurring public-vote programs are filed under the Des Moines metro, 5 on organizers' own sites and 2 on GoGo Photo Contest. Each one sets its own limits and dates.
Can a business pay Cityview to be included in Best of Des Moines?
No. Cityview says its 2027 poll has no pay-to-play arrangement and no nomination process, and every business is eligible from the first day of voting. Inclusion depends only on customers typing the name. Promotion bought from an agency for the poll buys reach among real people in Des Moines, never a place in Cityview's results.
Sources
- dmcityview.com. dmcityview.com/best-2027/.
- dmcityview.com. dmcityview.com/best-2027/.
- dmcityview.com. dmcityview.com/publisher/2026/02/04/a-poll-for-the-decades/.
- surveymonkey.com. surveymonkey.com/r/GTCHG9T.
- dmcityview.com. dmcityview.com/best-2027/.
Voting Now does not touch Cityview's count, its IP check or its decision to discard a submission it deems fraudulent; those belong to Cityview alone. We never fill in the SurveyMonkey form for anyone, never set up devices or accounts to add to a Des Moines total, and do not try to pay Cityview for a place, which the organizer says does not exist. No reward to customers goes into our promotion without Cityview's written answer. Political or governmental votes are outside our work entirely.
A contest vote sits under two rulebooks, the platform's and the organizer's. Meta's Spam standard lists offering anything of monetary value in exchange for engagement as a covered behavior, and the Santa Barbara Independent says it will disqualify a business that offers voters incentives of any kind. Voting Now reads both rulebooks before it plans anything, and a clause that forbids outside promotion ends the job.
Contest platforms check votes as routine. Easypromos runs each vote through 11 security controls and does not count one that fails any of them, and Woobox says voting fraud is becoming more common as contests grow popular. Voting Now promotes to real people who choose for themselves, at the contest's own pace, and none of this is a method for getting past a check.
Under 16 CFR 465.8, buying fake indicators of social media influence for a commercial purpose can violate the FTC's rule, which is one reason Voting Now promotes to real people and does not bring in bought counts. The FTC's Endorsement Guides also require a paid creator to disclose the connection clearly. Whether outside promotion is lawful for a given contest is a question for a lawyer, and Voting Now takes no political or governmental votes.
No quote promises a win, a ranking or a vote count, because the organizer counts the votes and applies its own rules. The Santa Barbara Independent, for one, says it will disqualify a business that offers voters incentives of any kind. Nothing runs before the client approves a written quote.