For the Wings 4 Water team. Everything here was checked against the live site before it was written down. Two things are fixed, and there are three things worth knowing before Thursday so nothing comes as a surprise.
Changed on 9 September at the organisers' request. The page switches itself on at 6:00 PM Central on Thursday. Before then, anyone visiting sees a holding message instead of results, and the page does not even request the vote data, so nothing can leak early.
The leaderboard was showing 29,143 votes across 24 sponsors before this year's event had started. Those totals sat on the same sponsor records that get reused each year, so last year's numbers were still in place and would have appeared on screen on Thursday evening.
This is normal to carry over. The account has a built-in reset for exactly this, and it had not been run yet for 2026.
Reset the vote fields across the 48 sponsors marked Sponsor Year 2026. It sets three fields to zero and touches nothing else: no tags, no tiers, no vote links, no sponsor details. Sponsors from earlier years were deliberately left alone, so 2025's history is untouched.
A full snapshot of every sponsor's vote numbers was saved first, so previous totals can be restored exactly if ever needed.
So when you open the board and it reads zero, that is correct. Thursday starts from a clean count.
Both switch themselves on at the right time. Nothing needs pasting on the day.
| What | Opens by itself |
|---|---|
| Vote buttons on the sponsor page | Thu 10 Sep, 12:00 noon Central |
| Leaderboard results | Thu 10 Sep, 6:00 PM Central |
The ?voting=on and ?results=on links are for previewing
only. They change nothing for anyone else visiting the site.
This is the part to read carefully, because it needs a person.
When someone buys votes online the payment succeeds, but the sponsor's total does not move on its own. This is long standing and did not change today.
We tested turning on the automation that was meant to bridge that gap. It made things worse: it credited the person who paid rather than the sponsor they were voting for. Because some sponsors buy votes themselves, that would have put real votes onto the wrong sponsor without anyone noticing. So it has been turned back off deliberately.
Two people have already paid and are owed votes: Kerry Cullinan paid $100 for Ryan Lawn & Tree on 6 September, and Daniel Apgar paid $100 for 4-Gen Construction on 8 September. Both need 100 votes adding by hand.
Purchases are collected automatically. Someone enters them at /enter-votes, and the leaderboard updates within about a minute. That is exactly how previous years ran, so it is the familiar process rather than a workaround invented this week.
The night has two halves. Test them separately, because that is how they run.
?voting=onThis proves the buttons, the payment links and the checkout all work. It will not move the leaderboard, and that is expected, not a fault. Note the payment is real: there is no test mode, so refund the $10 afterwards.
?results=onThis is the half that matters most, and it is already proven working. A test of 10 votes was entered and reached the live board correctly.
Guest pays → someone enters the purchase → board updates. Half one proves people can pay. Half two proves the board is accurate. The person in the middle is the part to staff on Thursday.
| Item | State |
|---|---|
| Vote buttons appear automatically at noon | Ready |
| Leaderboard hidden until 6 PM | Ready |
| Vote totals reset for 2026 | Done |
| Counting votes entered by hand | Proven working |
| Sponsor vote links, 47 of 48 complete | Intrepid Direct missing |
| Counting online and QR purchases automatically | Manual entry needed |
| Two buyers owed 100 votes each | To be credited |
These still exist and carry previous years in their titles, so it is worth not
linking to them on the night: /vote-now (2025), /select-sponsor (2024)
and /record-votes-4101 (2024). The current pages are the two in section 2.
Prepared 9 September 2026, updated after the leaderboard time moved to 6:00 PM Central. Every link was opened and confirmed working before this page was written. The vote reset was run against the 48 sponsors marked Sponsor Year 2026, with a full snapshot taken beforehand so previous totals can be restored if ever needed.