33 contests with public online voting in South Dakota — Athlete of the Week and more. Real, paced votes; honest guidance on each contest's rules.
Sioux Falls · Argus Leader (Gannett / USA TODAY Network)
Weekly fan-vote poll inside the Argus Leader's High School Sports section (Gannett / USA TODAY Network), pulling nominees from Sioux Falls and Eastern South Dakota programs alongside the rest of the paper's statewide coverage area. Free to vote, no account required, poll closes Fridays at 11:59 p.m.
Public Opinion, a South Dakota newspaper, invites readers each week during the season to pick its top athlete on Crowdsignal at poll.fm. The most recent confirmed ballot ran 2-8 June and is closed. Seasons are confirmed for 2024 and 2025. This page explains who runs the poll, what the ballot shows, how a supporter casts a vote, and which details the publisher leaves off the poll page.
One ballot, two newspapers. The Watertown Public Opinion and Aberdeen American News (both Gannett / USA TODAY Network) jointly run this free weekly athlete poll across every high school sport in northeastern South Dakota, no account needed, closing Sunday at midnight.
Sioux Falls · Sioux Falls Argus Leader (Gannett / USA TODAY Network)
Free weekly statewide fan poll at argusleader.com, run by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader (Gannett / USA TODAY Network), covering all SDHSAA sports seasons across Class AA, A, and B schools. ArgusLeader.com readers vote, with the poll closing Fridays at 11:59 p.m.
Statewide South Dakota · High School on SI / SBLive Sports (si.com/high-school)
Annual statewide fan-vote football Player of the Year award for South Dakota prep athletes, hosted on si.com/high-school/south-dakota by High School on SI (SBLive Sports). Voting is free, open to any reader, and the 2024 poll recorded 17,475 total votes before closing. One of the few SD-statewide annual POY fan polls.
605 Magazine's annual Best of South Dakota is a statewide People's Choice Award spanning three main categories, with winners announced in the magazine's December/January issue. Nominations and voting run through 605magazine.com; confirm the live site each cycle for current category names, deadlines, and any vote limits.
Aberdeen · Aberdeen Area Humane Society
The Aberdeen Area Humane Society AAHS Photo Calendar Contest is a public photo vote for the 2026 calendar, hosted on GoGo Photo Contest in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Aberdeen · Aberdeen Community's Choice Awards (Gannett / USA TODAY Network)
A Gannett-owned USA TODAY Network local paper organizes Aberdeen Community's Choice Awards, a South Dakota business ballot, on the Your Choice Awards network at yourchoiceawards.com/aberdeen. Two editions are confirmed, 2024 and 2025, and the 2024 round spanned a wide category slate, ran December 2 through 23 with one vote allowed per person each day, and closed with winners announced February 8, 2025. A next round is expected, though its own dates are not yet published; confirm the current window on the live ballot each cycle.
Indian Country Today keeps the WaPo Skins Poll: Surprising, Not Shocking page in its own archive at ictnews.org, and the outlet is registered to South Dakota. The page carries a public-vote mechanic rather than a commercial contest portal, and the material points to a November 2025 window with editions noted for 2025 and 2026. Unlike the state's reader's-choice ballots, this one lives inside a news article, so supporters reach it through the story itself.
Annual Mitchell Daily Republic readers-choice awards for Mitchell, South Dakota businesses, published on the Forum Communications "Best of the Midwest" ballot platform with public reader voting each spring.
Pierre · Pierre Capital Journal
A favorite-businesses vote run by the Pierre Capital Journal, whose printed 2025 voting period ran August 16 through August 24 and reached readers through capjournal.com and a QR code.
Annual CommunityVotes readers-choice business awards for Rapid City and Pennington County, South Dakota's second-largest market, spanning 120-plus local business categories through open nomination then finalist voting.
Annual CommunityVotes readers-choice business awards for Sioux Falls and the surrounding South Dakota metro, spanning 120-plus local business categories with open nominations followed by a finalist voting round.
Dakota Broadcasting, the South Dakota radio operation behind KABD, hosts the FCS Releases National Championship Playoff Bracket page on dakotabroadcasting.com. The page reports the NCAA's FCS college football playoff bracket, with North Dakota State holding the top overall seed, and carries a public vote for the station's audience. The confirmed window sits in September 2026, the ballot is in a results phase, and 2025 is the only edition year confirmed so far.
Living Magazine Readers' Choice is a business award run by Living Magazine on the publisher's own website for South Dakota. Editions ran in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, and online voting happens each year across the magazine's communities. The current page presents the 2026 winners, and the vote runs from March through May.
Indian Country Today presents Outside Ecuadorians For President, a public vote published on the ICT News site at ictnews.org. The ballot sits under the Outside section and its confirmed window is November 2025. Editions are confirmed for 2021, 2023 and 2025, which marks the vote as a recurring feature of the newsroom rather than a single event. The page is a factual reference for supporters and researchers, and every rule the ballot does not print is left as a gap rather than a guess.
Annual multi-category business readers-choice contest run by the Rapid City Journal (Lee Enterprises), covering the wider Black Hills tourism region and distinct from the separate CommunityVotes Rapid City ballot.
Rapid City Journal's Readers' Choice program runs an online reader ballot across roughly 80 categories covering Rapid City itself, published at a dated 2025 ballot URL, a narrower scope than the Journal's separate, wider-region Best of the Black Hills contest.
From April 18 to April 29, 2024, South Dakota voters could respond to the Spring 2024 Poll run by the School of American and Global Studies at South Dakota State University in Brookings. The poll asked about statewide ballot measures, including the grocery sales tax, recreational marijuana and top-two primaries. Confirmed editions also appear in 2020, 2022 and 2025, with the polling window falling between March and May in the confirmed cycle.
Sioux Falls · SculptureWalk Sioux Falls
Sioux Falls' summer sculpture exhibit lets visitors crown a People's Choice winner on the organizer's own ballot page.
Sd Preps Vb Hs Poll Rankings is a public-vote high school volleyball poll run by espnsiouxfalls.com, carried on the publisher's own domain, covering South Dakota. The confirmed 2025 cycle ran as a preseason poll in August, with the Harrisburg Tigers topping the SD Media Volleyball preseason list. Confirmed editions cover 2025 and 2026. The exact open and close days, any vote cap and eligibility rules are not printed, so confirm on the live ballot each cycle.
KKLS-FM, the Sioux Falls radio station behind Hot 104.7, publishes a ballot asking the public to vote the Canaries' mascot Peep into the Mascot Hall of Fame. The page tells supporters to vote for Peep every day through November 12. Editions of the ballot have run across 2022 through 2026, and the station hosts the vote on its own hot1047.com domain. Exact open and close dates for any given cycle, any vote ceiling and any eligibility wording sit outside what the page prints, so the live ballot is the reference for the current cycle. This page sets out who runs the vote, when it has run, how a supporter casts a ballot and where the ballot sits among other South Dakota reader votes.
Statewide photo vote run by South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, where supporters like their favorite entries each November.
The South Dakota Hs Fb Poll Rankings is a high school football poll published by espnsiouxfalls.com, the ESPN Sioux Falls outlet behind KSOO-AM. Confirmed editions exist for 2025 and 2026, and the 2025 voting phase ran through September. The latest dated update, written by Bert Remien and published September 16, 2025, kept the Sioux Falls Lincoln Patriots at the top of the 11AAA SD Media poll. The vote is cast on espnsiouxfalls.com itself, with no outside balloting service in between.
A nomination-driven awards program promoted on the 973 KKRC station site, honoring South Dakota retailers, restaurants and community service with three named honors.
Tag Navajo is the directory name for the Navajo Ballots tag maintained by Indian Country Today, a Native-led, independent and nonprofit newsroom whose ballot hub lives on its own domain at ictnews.org. The program serves South Dakota and is logged as a public vote. Confirmed editions fall in 2022 and 2025, and the logged voting window sits inside November.
A chamber-run burger competition in Watertown, South Dakota, now in its fourth year. The Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce hosts the public vote on its own website, with the 2026 window opening Thursday, January 15 and closing Saturday, February 28 at 9:00 PM. The Burger Battle Champion will be announced Wednesday, March 4, 2026.
The Public Opinion-Aberdeen News AOTW Poll is a weekly Athlete of the Week ballot run by the Watertown Public Opinion newspaper in Watertown, South Dakota. Readers cast free clicks at poll.fm on Crowdsignal, where the most recent confirmed ballot, covering June 8-14, closed after voting ran through midnight on Sunday, April 19, 2026. Confirmed editions appear in 2023, 2025 and 2026.
South Dakota's Miss South Dakota People's Choice is the audience vote that runs beside the Miss South Dakota Scholarship Organization's annual competition. The ballot lives on Spotfund, where the 2026 edition is live and the 2025 edition preceded it. The contestant with the most votes secures a Semi-Finals spot for the 2026 Miss South Dakota Competition. The ballot page prints no voting dates.
Huron · Huron Regional Medical Center
Huron Regional Medical Center runs an annual cutest baby photo vote from its own Huron, South Dakota website, with 2026 voting set for July.
Brandon · Brandon Valley Area Chamber of Commerce
The Brandon Valley Area Chamber of Commerce in South Dakota runs the Burger Battle, inviting diners to stop by participating businesses in January, try the competing burgers and come back to its page to rate them. Voting is posted for January 1st to 31st in the 2026 round, and earlier editions ran in 2023 and 2024.
Downtown Sioux Falls Inc. has run the Downtown Burger Battle in Sioux Falls, South Dakota since 2013, and SiouxFalls.Business has reported dated editions in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Burger lovers try the entries at participating downtown restaurants, then vote through the DTSF Digital Passport app across named categories, flavor, patty, toppings, bun and presentation, capped at a single vote per person each day. The current cycle's exact dates have not surfaced on the page yet; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.
Deadwood · Deadwood Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau
A nine-week head-to-head burger competition in Deadwood and Lead, South Dakota, run by the Deadwood and Lead chambers of commerce and scored by public star ratings on deadwood.com.
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