The Golden Boot Awards, The Boot’s fan-voted digital awards, are back for a third year in 2016. Each of this year's eight categories features staff-selected nominees who made waves in the country music world from May 2015 through April 2016. Readers can vote for their favorites in each category as often as once per hour through 11:59PM ET on June 5. We'll announce the winners on the site the following Monday (June 6).

In 2015, Luke Bryan won Artist of the Year in the Golden Boot Awards with 31.1 percent of the votes, and he has the opportunity to win once again in 2016 -- but he's facing stiff competition, including from two other returning Artist of the Year nominees: Eric Church and Jason Aldean. (Fun fact: Aldean is the reigning ACM Awards Entertainer of the Year ... and he beat out both Bryan and Church for the title.)

Carrie Underwood is the lone woman in this Golden Boot Awards category, but she's had a major year: a new album, Storyteller, her Storyteller Tour and an upcoming Australian trek with Keith Urban. And speaking of Urban, he, Dierks Bentley and Blake Shelton are also nominated for Artist of the Year. The final 2016 Golden Boot Awards Artist of the Year nominee is Chris Stapleton, who's had himself a major year (and that's a bit of an understatement).

Vote for the country star you think should nab the 2016 Golden Boot Awards' Artist of the Year honor in the poll below. There are eight top-notch contenders, but only one will emerge the winner ... Who will it be?

Please note: Cheating will not be tolerated, and any voter found to be cheating will have their votes disqualified. A captcha has been put in place to prevent cheating. If you cannot read the captcha, press the top blue button next to it to refresh to a new one, or press the middle blue button to have the polling system read the captcha to you.

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