MINNESOTA'S BEST OFFICIAL 2025 RULES
This contest is not part of, or managed by the Star Tribune newsroom.
What is Minnesota's Best?
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.
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NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY TO NOMINATE, BE NOMINATED, VOTE OR BE VOTED FOR.
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Do I Have to Register?
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.
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Can I Vote by Paper or in Person?
No. All nominations and voting are done through our website and links to our voting platform.
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How Does Nominating Work?
We rely on our audience to supply us with the names of outstanding people, businesses and establishments in over 350 categories. We reserve the right to reject any person, business or establishment for any reason. 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 13 topic areas: Beauty & Fitness, Discover Minnesota, Eat & Drink, Education, Entertainment, Health & Wellness, Home & Garden, Law, Minnesota Fun, Motors, Real Estate, Services, Shopping. Nominees must be individuals and businesses that are located in the state of Minnesota.
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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, Thursday, January 23rd, 2025, to nominate.
Businesses, including franchises, with multiple locations will appear as a single nomination for the voting phase unless otherwise specified by the business.
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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.
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The nomination period begins at noon, Monday, December 2, 2024, and ends at midnight on Thursday, January 23rd, 2025.
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Will Everyone that is Nominated be on the Ballot?
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 having a nomination that has been accepted. We reserve the right to reject a nomination of a business for any reason.
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I’ve Been Nominated, What is Required of Me?
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.
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How are Votes Tabulated?
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, or for any other reason. Votes that are suspect may be disqualified in the count.
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The regular voting period begins at noon, Sunday, February 16th, 2025, and ends at midnight, Wednesday, March 12th, 2025.
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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.
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Without limitation of the foregoing, Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate, modify or suspend the contest, or exclude any participant, 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.
​Contestants risk disqualification if they use promotions involving quid pro quo strategies, such as, but not limited to "vote for us, and we’ll enter you into a drawing" or "vote for us, and we’ll give you a discount." These approaches create an unfair advantage by incentivizing votes, which goes against the contest guidelines and can result in disqualification to ensure a level playing field for all participants.
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.
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Can I “Write-In” a Business During Voting?
All nominations have to be verified prior to being placed on the final ballot. During the nomination process, we welcome all submissions.
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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, February 27th, 2025. All late entries must be emailed to lateentry@minnesotasbest.net for consideration.
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When will Winners be Announced?
The names of the winners will be posted and announced on VotedMinnesotasBest.com and in our Minnesota's Best special winners guide on Sunday, July 13th, 2025. In the event of a tie in any category, more than one winner or runner-up may be awarded.
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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.
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About Star Tribune Media Company
For more than 150 years, Star Tribune’s mission has been to cover what matters most to Minnesotans. We have been the trusted forum for Minnesota’s most important conversations. Whether Minnesota is confronting an injustice, holding our leaders accountable, or chronicling the state we love, it is a good bet the conversation was started by one of our 240 journalists.
As a result of this work, Star Tribune has become Minnesota’s largest media company. In addition to offering a range of advertising and agency services, our media platforms reach more Minnesotans than those of any other local media company.
Our digital platforms connect with millions of Minnesotans. With over 5MM unique users visiting it each month, StarTribune.com is the most visited media site in Minnesota. Through our Advantage digital platform, we reach another 15MM unique visitors through email, on other websites, on social media, through search, and on streaming video.
We connect with 1 million people with our printed product each week. On its own, our Sunday newspaper reaches over 650k readers each week – it’s the 5th largest regional Sunday newspaper in the United States.
MINNESOTA'S BEST PRODUCERS
Oregon-based NERUS Strategies, one of the fastest-growing resources for media companies in the US and Canada, powers Minnesota’s Best through their propitiatory platform, Optimum by NERUS. The team works with print and broadcast companies to deliver one of the most powerful contests for local businesses. Their most notable is the Best of Las Vegas, the largest local contest in North America. In addition to contests, they also produce refreshing niche content, special publications, television spots, long-format programming, social media, curated content, digital strategies, promotion, fund development, and traditional advertising services to small and large businesses across the United States and Canada.