The largest headline on the front page of today’s Wheeling Intelligencer’s tells us:

Simply The Best

As the subheading explains:

Readers Choose The Best Of The Ohio Valley

Yes, it’s time for the results of Ogden’s annual reader survey of Ohio Valley businesses. As the article explains, readers first nominated area businesses in 138 different categories. Finalists were then determined in each of these categories and then placed online for voting.

Today’s article tells us that there were around 85,000 votes cast. Yes, 85,000 votes. For the sake of comparison: the most recent U.S. census report tells us that the population in the Wheeling Metro area (Ohio, Marshall, and Belmont counties) is only 138,000. So, 85,000 (or 65%) of them voted in Ogden’s survey? For another comparison, there were only 48,000 who voted in those three counties in last week’s election. Where did all those survey votes come from? Did six-month-olds, ten-year-olds, and ninety-year-olds all vote? I doubt it. It is not surprising, then, that if you go to the paper’s online page for voting, there does not appear to be anything to prevent someone from voting twice, or fifty times, or a hundred times. Hmmm -- looks like a lot of potential for voter fraud. (Where’s Dinesh D'Souza when you really need him?) That some may have voted more than once probably explains why the number voting is so high; it may also explain some of the results.

So how does this generate revenue for Ogden? While voting is going on, businesses would be wise to advertise in the paper and the paper’s online website. Additionally, there’s advertising revenue even after the voting has been completed – I would estimate that around half of today’s 30-page supplement on the awards is advertising by the various winners. (My hunch is that there were additional pages for advertising in the award ceremony's program.) Finally, it should be noted where the banquet honoring the winners was held:

The Best of the Ohio Valley Readers Choice Awards were presented during a ceremony at the Wheeling Country Club.

And guess who owns Wheeling Country Club? Would it be fair to say that the winners paid for their own phony-baloney award?