Best of Falls Church 2024 Rules & Regulations

These are the guidelines, rules and regulations for the 2024 Best Of Falls Church contest:

1. You must be 13 years of age or older to participate in this contest. This contest is void where prohibited by law.
2. Contest participants agree to abide by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of the contest commissioners, which are final on all matters pertaining to the contest.
3. The Falls Church News-Press reserves the right to use any and all information related to the Contest, including information on participants obtained through the contest, for marketing purposes or any other purpose, unless prohibited by law.
4. The Falls Church News-Press is not responsible for Internet crashes or slowdowns caused by network congestion, viruses, sabotage, satellite failure, phone line failures, electrical outages, natural disasters, or acts of man or God.

Nomination period (6/13/24 to 7/21/24)

1. Participants may nominate only one business per category.
2. Due to spelling errors, best efforts are made to standardize the nominations to match an existing business.
3. Those businesses achieving the minimum required number of nominations will be eligible to be placed on the voting ballot. Of those eligible businesses, the five businesses who receive the greatest total number of nominations will be added to the final vote ballot.
4. If there are zero businesses in a category that receive the minimum number of nominations, The News-Press reserves the right to eliminate that category in the Contest. Categories will be finalized at the time of voting in August.
5.  Participants are required to provide a valid email address in order to participate in the Contest.
6. The nomination period will run from June 13, 2024 to July 21, 2024.

Final voting period (7/25/24 – 8/4/24)

1.  Participants are required to provide a valid email address in order to participate in the Contest.
2. Participants may vote for only one business per category.
3. The final voting period will run from July 25 through August 4, 2024 at midnight. The online voting site will only be active during that timeframe.

Determination of winners

1. Winners are selected by receiving the highest number of votes during the final voting period. The company, person, or organization (“candidate”) with the most votes in a particular category will receive the Best Of award. The remaining four or fewer candidates will be the “runners up.” Multiple candidates with an equal number of votes will all receive the higher award.
   1. Online voting totals are generated through voters choosing one of the candidates listed. The final total for each candidate is determined by the compiled total of all online votes. Vote totals will not be published.
   2. It is the intention of the Falls Church News-Press to present a winner in each category posted; however, a candidate must receive a minimum of five (5) votes to receive any award. If no one receives that minimum, the News-Press reserves the right to eliminate the category and not announce any winners.
   3. The Falls Church News-Press will not present awards to candidates that are not located within the greater area of Falls Church, unless that candidate is in one of the selected categories that perform business primarily in customers’ homes or places of work.
   4. The Falls Church News-Press reserves the right to determine what categories will be included in the contest.

The Falls Church News-Press reserves the right to refuse votes for businesses, individuals or organizations that are deemed not appropriate for the category for which they were cast, are outside of the greater Falls Church area, and votes that may have been submitted abusing the online voting process.

The Best Of Falls Church Contest is the sole property of the Falls Church News-Press. The Falls Church News-Press reserves the right to, among other things, amend the process, judge entries and determine the validity of the votes submitted. In the case of suspected fraudulent votes, reserved rights and possible actions may include, without limitation: utilization of methods necessary to determine the validity of votes; the removal of the category from the contest; disqualifying the fraudulent votes; disqualifying the recipient of the fraudulent votes in that category or any other; disqualifying that company from future contests for any period of time; withdrawing previous Best Of Falls Church awards; and possible litigation. Additionally, any contestant that misrepresents their Best Of award by category may be subject to the above stated actions by the Falls Church News-Press up to and including revocation of awards and disqualification from future contests.

Any amendments to the rules and regulations of these contests will be published on this site.

Winners (8/15/24)