Welcome to the “Real Best of Memphis” issue. That’s what
we’re calling it this year. It’s what the marketing folks call
“branding.” It’s a way of defining who we are — what we
are — to the public, since another local print entity has
been trying to steal the concept.

The Flyer’s Best of Memphis is in its 17th year. We
created the concept locally and, frankly, we’ve paid our
dues. Back in what I like to call the “hanging chad” years,
we printed full-page ballots in the paper for two or three
weeks. Readers were required, as now, to fill out at least 50
percent of the categories. But unlike in recent years, when
the voting has been done entirely online, readers had to
put the ballot in a stamped envelope and mail it to our
office.

This method, to put it mildly, was nuts. Imagine 5,000
ballots, each with, oh, 100 different categories, all having
to be opened, hand-counted, and tabulated. It took weeks,
every year.

The problem was that every ballot was filled out by
hand, so not only did you have to interpret whether
someone had scribbled, say, WRVR or WEGR, you’d have
to make a call as to whether a vote for “Rock 103” was
the same as a vote for “Bad Dog’s morning show.” ere
was much left to interpretation, but we tried to honor the
intention of the voter.

Those were also the years of ballot-stuffing. Enterprising
dry-cleaner owners or restaurateurs would take all the
copies of the Flyer they could get out of our street boxes.

Then, presumably using employees and family members,
they’d fill out a couple hundred ballots. Sometimes, they’d
stupidly mail them all to us in one envelope; sometimes
they’d invest in a couple hundred stamps and envelopes
and send them in separately — which made it tougher to
figure out when stuffing was happening.

In the last few years, with pull-down tabs and an online
system that lets each computer vote only once, these
problems have largely disappeared. I’d put our results up
there with the Election Commission. Oops, maybe a bad
example. At any rate, I believe the Flyer Best of Memphis
results are an honest reflection of how our readers voted.
It’s the “real deal.” Congrats to all.

BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN
brucev@memphisflyer.com