The ultimate decision about who should be the Person of the Year is made by TIME’s editors, but every year the reader poll is an important window into who you think most shaped 2016.

This is your chance to cast your vote: Who do you think influenced the news the most this year, for better or for worse?

For 2016, TIME—in partnership with Opentopic and IBM’s Watson—is also able to track and compare influence in a whole new way. Opentopic worked with Watson to track how candidates made their mark on the Internet, in order to create a picture of what the world is saying about the people and ideas that matter. As part of this collaboration with Fortune and TIME, Opentopic has evaluated more than 62 million documents from nearly 3.5 million online sources. Watson’s deep-learning technology then classifies and sorts that information. TIME’s editors used this information while finalizing the list for the Person of the Year reader poll—and, as Watson updates that analysis throughout the polling period, this technology can deepen our understanding of what it really means to be one of the most influential people in the world.

Voting on the reader’s choice poll ends Dec. 4, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

TIME’s Person of the Year will be revealed on Dec. 7.



Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Now Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Contact us at letters@time.com.