Over half a million (513,000) votes were cast in The Bubbas: 10th Annual Key West People’s Choice Awards, which occurred over a span of roughly four weeks. According to the data, over 30,000 individual voters were responsible for the cumulative total. And based on emails and other credentials, over half of the voters were new to the contest.
And while half of the total votes came from the state of Florida, the Bubbas proved (once again) to be a global phenomenon. Votes were cast from 34 states within the U.S., including Hawaii and Alaska. And every continent on the globe, outside of Antarctica, is represented in the 2023 Bubbas.
The northernmost votes were cast near Kalajoki, Sweden and the southernmost votes were submitted from Heywood, Australia. Outside of the U.S., Eastern Europe was the most heavily concentrated area of votes, with countries like Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia and Germany participating.
Some of the more remote areas of the world that cast votes include places like Goodnews Bay, Alaska, Rollag, Norway, one vote off a Pacific island of Japan, Medan, Indonesia and Ribeirao, Brazil.
As for the Keys Weekly, we already feel like winners, as the participation for the Bubbas has grown every year of the contest’s 10-year existence. Because of this, winners continue to change, with many new first-time plaques to be handed out on July 22 at the Bubbas Awards Gala.
And while the Keys Weekly does not share or use any voter information for purposes outside of the contest, we do offer the option for voters to opt-in to the Keys Weekly daily e-blast. This year, over 12,000 new e-blast subscribers opted in to receive free, daily news to their inboxes, making the Weekly Blast the largest daily news feed in the Keys with over 30,000 subscribers. Most of all, we remain humbled to serve Key West and the Florida Keys, while providing free print and digital news from the only locally owned source of news media across all of Monroe County.
