Judge a contest with ranked ballots
Running an art contest or design award? Collect entries, help judges compare and rank them, and give the audience a defined role in the result.
From collecting entries to a combined result
Use Rezon for a large field of entries or a final judging round. A ranked ballot keeps each judge’s preferences beyond their first choice.
- Collect entries inside Rezon. Enable participant proposals for additions, removals or both. Participants can suggest a new entry with supporting material or request removal with a reason. You review the proposals; approved changes take effect in a new round.
- Help judges compare. Give entries consistent descriptions and suitable images, video or linked documents. Judges can use private notes and temporary ratings while reviewing, then submit their order of preference.
- Give the audience a defined role. Run a public poll and include its resulting ranking in the jury poll as one collective ballot with a weight you set. Audience size does not automatically determine its influence on the jury result.
Set up your contest vote
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Define the judging rules.
Explain eligibility and criteria such as interpretation of the theme, originality and visual expression. Set deadlines, ranking requirements, the counting method, tie-break rules and result visibility. Decide whether participants may propose entries or removals.
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Invite your judges and audience.
Use an invited panel, a public vote or both. For international participants, translate the entries and instructions within the same poll. For a combined jury result, finish reviewing entries before linking polls with the same main question and candidate set; disable candidate-change suggestions in the audience poll.
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Read and explain the result.
Review the calculated ranking under your published rules, including the audience’s collective ballot and its assigned weight when linked. If you want a separate audience prize instead, keep its result separate from the jury award.
Try judging “My Dream Playground”
Imagine a drawing contest for ages 5–7. Six playground ideas are presented as Entry A–F. All illustrations are AI-generated for this demo, not real children’s submissions. This example is a single public poll, without entry proposals or a linked jury poll.
Before you start
Do we need to select a shortlist first?
No. A poll can include 100 or 200 entries when supported by your plan and counting method. A shortlist is an organizational choice, not a required step. Candidate limits depend on both the plan and the method.
How does the audience’s weight work?
The audience poll contributes its calculated ranking as one collective ballot, not one jury ballot for every audience member. For example, weight 3 gives that ranking the same weight as three individual ballots of weight 1. Set and explain this weight in your contest rules.
Are vote weights the same as scores for judging criteria?
No. A vote weight controls the influence of an individual or collective ballot. Judges still submit an overall ranking, not a weighted scorecard for separate criteria. Private notes, temporary ratings and answers about which criterion mattered most do not set a ballot’s weight.