Holy Schnikes! Ballots for Idaho’s Best of 2020 are in, and it looks to be a phenomenal success. 

The businesses and attractions that were up for voting in their respective categories were nominated by Idaho residents in August and September. Those that received enough nominations earned their spots on the ballot. 

Tens of thousands of votes were cast to show support for your favorite businesses and attractions in our community. We were overwhelmed with the enthusiastic response and can’t wait to share the finalists of each category. 

What Happens Now 

We want the Idaho’s Best Awards to be as fair as possible, so our team is working hard to calculate the results and verify the findings. We use a scoring system that relies on a combination of votes as well as reviews from services like Google and Yelp. We even include ratings from the Better Business Bureau in our scoring! 

Count Ballots

Who had the most votes? While technology makes counting easy, we still need to verify the results. Previous contests allowed spamming or daily voting. For improved results, this year we’re only counting unique votes for each category. 

Count Reviews

Idaho’s Best isn’t like most “Best of” contests, which simply count votes. We realize that the community has already been showing their support for the “best” by leaving reviews all year long, so we’re going to count those too! We’re counting every 5-star review published on Google and Yelp within the last 12 months. 

Calculate Rating

While votes and reviews signify great work in the last year, overall ratings on Google and Yelp tell us how nominees have done long term. The mean rating from these platforms will be used in conjunction with 5-star reviews and votes to determine the winners.

Announce Finalists

The top nominees of each category will be publicly announced next week once we’ve verified our results. Finalists will also be notified by letter and email as soon as possible. 

Announce Winners

Winners will be announced at the Idaho’s Best Awards Banquet, on December 3rd and 4th, 2019. Finalists will be invited to purchase tickets for the celebration. The banquet includes a red carpet entrance, a fancy dinner, photos, and other special prizes and opportunities.

Thank You

We’re grateful to everyone for the support and participation in the Idaho’s Best Awards. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’re already looking forward to next year’s contest!