Minnesota's Best presented by Becker Furniture World & Mattress invites, engages and allows you, our audience, to recognize the best businesses, organizations and people in Minnesota. Our focus is on businesses and professionals that support, serve and do business in Minnesota. The contest is sponsored by Star Tribune Media Company LLC (“Sponsor”), which publishes the Star Tribune newspaper (the “Newspaper”). However, please note that this contest, any content created about winners, and the selection of winners is NOT PART OF, OR A PRODUCT OF THE STAR TRIBUNE NEWSROOM.
NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY TO NOMINATE, BE NOMINATED, VOTE OR BE VOTED FOR.
Nominations require a name and email address in case we need to clarify an entry. Those nominating can opt-in to email lists to receive updates on the program. You may submit your nominees in any given topic area and return to complete the survey any time before the deadline.
Registration may be also necessary in the voting phase to promote fair voting. You may be asked for your name and email address.
No. All nominations and voting are done through our website and links to our voting platform.
We rely on our audience to supply us with the names of outstanding people, businesses and establishments in each of the 360 categories. Once the nominees are finalized, our audience is asked to vote on one choice in each category. Per our guidelines, you are allowed to nominate without limits. You may vote once every 24 hours.
Our audience and business owners nominate their favorites by selecting one of 14 topic areas: Agriculture, Beauty & Fitness, Discover Minnesota, Eat & Drink, Education, Entertainment, Health & Wellness, Home & Garden, Law, Minnesota Fun, Motors, Real Estate, Services, Shopping. Nominees should be individuals and businesses that serve the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area with the exception of the Discover Minnesota categories which encompass the entire state of Minnesota.
Nominating is as simple as entering a name and city in text entry fields. An email is required, to provide additional information, as needed, on the nominee. You may return any time before midnight, Wednesday, April 14, 2021, to nominate.
Businesses, including franchises, with multiple locations will appear as a single nomination for the voting phase, unless otherwise specified by the business.
Users are not required to nominate in all categories, but must submit the nomination form by hitting the "submit" button at the bottom of the page. Users are permitted to nominate a single business in more than one category.
The nomination period begins at noon, Monday, March 29, 2021, and ends at midnight, April 14, 2021.
For a category to qualify for the ballot, there must be a minimum of five separate businesses that are competing for votes. If a category is not qualifying, we will make reasonable accommodations to move the nominee to a similar category. Once a category is qualified, we will ballot each individual business that has been nominated.
Businesses, organizations or individuals that are nominated by our audience will be placed on our ballot after they are verified. Should a business earn enough votes to be in the top two they may be required to complete a simple online questionnaire with basic business information including, Name, Location(s), Year Established, Business Hours, Phone Number, Web Address (if any) and submit or make available a photo of the business, organization or individual. There is no cost or obligation for "Gold Winners" to participate.
Nominations and votes are tabulated by a third-party (the “Processor”). Neither the Sponsor, the Newspaper nor their affiliates know the results of the contest until after the votes are tabulated. In each category, the audience votes for their favorite nominee. Individuals are permitted to vote in each category once per day. Businesses, institutions, individuals, and schools are encouraged to promote the contest in order to gain nominations and/or votes. Competitive advertising, special offers and campaigns are permitted; however, the Sponsor, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to exclude from the competition any businesses or individuals that engage in activities intended to “rig” or “fix” the voting process. Votes that are suspect may be disqualified in the count.
The regular voting period begins at noon, Monday, April 26, 2021, and ends at midnight, Friday, May 21, 2021.
Use of bots, robotic, repetitive, automatic, programmed, vote exchange websites, vote “farming”, scripts or other automated means designed to circumvent the “one ballot per person per day” rule, are not allowed. Contestants discovered using these methods for vote acceleration are subject to suspected votes being disqualified without notice, and the possibility of the contestant being completely disqualified and removed from the competition.
Without limitation of the foregoing, Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate, modify or suspend the contest for any reason, including but not limited to, if, in Sponsor's opinion, there is any suspected or actual evidence of electronic or non-electronic tampering with any portion of the contest, or if viruses, bugs, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical difficulties or failures or any other factor beyond Sponsor's reasonable control corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of the contest. In such event, Sponsor reserves the right (but does not have an obligation) in its sole discretion to cause winners to be determined based on eligible, non-suspect entries received. Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any individual it finds to be tampering with the entry process or the operation of the contest or to be acting in violation of these official rules or in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner. Any attempt by any person to deliberately damage any web site or undermine the legitimate operation of this contest may be a violation of criminal and civil laws, and, should such an attempt be made, Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages and other remedies from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law. Sponsor's failure to enforce any term of these official rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision.
These official rules (including all nomination and voting processes) apply to all registrants and all nominated entities without regard to whether they advertise (or have advertised) in the Newspaper or are otherwise affiliated with or associated with the Sponsor, the Newspaper or any other Sponsor-affiliated company.
All nominations have to be verified prior to being placed on the final ballot. During the nomination process, we welcome all submissions.
Our ballot is a closed ballot, however, we will consider late entries into an established category by request. All late entries must be received by midnight, May 13, 2021. All late entries must be emailed to lateentry@minnnesotasbest.net for consideration.
The names of the winners will be posted and announced in our Minnesota's Best special winners magazine delivered with the Sunday, August 1, 2021 edition of the newspaper and on VotedMinnesotasBest.com. In the event of a tie in any category, more than one winner or runner-up may be awarded.
What Other Rules Apply?
Release. By participating in this contest, each participant forever and irrevocably releases and holds harmless Sponsor, the Newspaper and the Processor, and their respective parents, subsidiaries and affiliates, and agents, advertising, public relations and promotion agencies, affiliates, and all of their respective employees, officers, directors, shareholders and agents from and against all claims, damages or liabilities arising in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from the contest, participant’s participation in the contest and any contest related activities.
Limitations of Liability. Sponsor, the Newspaper and the Processor are not responsible for: (a) incorrect or inaccurate transcription of entry information or late, lost, stolen, unintelligible, illegible, damaged, mutilated, altered, incomplete, misdirected nominations or votes or for nominations or votes received through impermissible or illegitimate channels, all of which will be disqualified; (b) technical failures of any kind, including but not limited to the malfunctioning of any telephone, computer online systems, computer equipment, web site, server provider, network, hardware or software; (c) the unavailability or inaccessibility of any telephone, mail, website or service; (d) unauthorized intervention in any part of the nomination or voting process or the contest; (e) printing, typographical, electronic or human errors which may occur in the offer or administration of the contest or the processing of nominations or votes; or (f) any injury or damage to persons or property, including but not limited to any participant's computer, which may be caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from participant's participation in the contest, or from viewing, playing or downloading any material from Sponsor's website(s) (or any other website(s)), regardless of whether the material was prepared by Sponsor or a third party, and regardless of whether the material is connected to Sponsor's website(s) (or any other website(s)) by a hypertext link.
Data Collection. Sponsor collects personal information from participants when they participate in the contest. By participating in the contest, each participant acknowledges that the participant has agreed to and consents to the collection, use and disclosure of the participant’s personal information by Sponsor for any purpose including but not limited to marketing purposes. Sponsor can be contacted at datacorrection@votedminnesotasbest.com to correct or delete such information from Sponsor’s database.