Tiebreaking judge

Challenged by trying to keep the tiebreaker judge a secret?  Does the tiebreaker judge need to be briefed too?  Try this idea, which I think is mostly within the rules, but no promises.

Put all your judging ballots, including the tiebreaker ballot, into envelopes (one each) and mix them up.  Recruit one extra judge — if you need nine, recruit ten.  Brief them all together.  Hand out the envelopes randomly, instructing the judges to put the completed ballot in the envelope for pickup.

After the contest, the ballot counters collect all the ballots together and take them for counting.  When the tiebreaker envelope is opened, it’s immediately handed to the chief judge, for use as necessary.

If you felt that not even a ballot counter should have a chance of seeing the tiebreaker ballot, you could discreetly mark that envelope in the corner before handing them out, and then look for it before they’re opened.

Advantages:

  • No one knows who the tiebreaker judge is until the ballots are being counted.
  • The tiebreaker judge gets briefed like the other judges.
  • No one in the audience observing the proceedings can possibly know who the tiebreaker judge is (out of the other judges).
  • The tiebreaker judge is randomly selected.

What are your thoughts?

7 thoughts on “Tiebreaking judge

  1. This seems like an idea that will work. One thing you didn’t mention would be the need to brief the tiebreaking requirements (all contestants ranked and don’t tell anyone you were a tiebreaker) to the group. Of course, there are a few randomly selected folks that will later remind you that they didn’t need to be briefed, but that’s a really minor issue.

  2. I do like your idea.

    It works if you don’t use the official ballot sheet for the tie breaking judge that has the header on it (even though it’s not any different in any other way from the other ballots). I’m talking about the double blind where the judges don’t even know the identity of the tie breaker.

    And yes, the only way to handle the briefing of all the judges of the tie breaking requirements just as part of the regular judges briefing.

  3. I’ve done this before and it worked well. I had a secret mark on the tiebreaker envelope, so I knew who I gave it to–someone I knew to be a highly experienced and reliable judge. But none of the other judges knew, and they were all briefed at the same time and the ballots collected as usual. I intercepted the tiebreaker envelope before they were opened. I suppose the ballot counters figured out who the tiebreaker was by the process of elimination, but I trusted them to keep quiet.

  4. While I like the idea of secrecy surrounding the tiebreaker judge, I personally think that their competency and neutrality are more important. Therefore, I am in favor of the Chief Judge intentionally selecting a tiebreaker judge who has a lot of experience in judging and who has the least incentive to be biased in favor of any contestant.

    Although the judges’ code of ethics requires that all judges refrain from bias, e. g. selecting a member of their own club or area as the winner primarily based upon that association, it does unfortunately occur on occasion. And I’ve seen it occur more often with inexperienced or less experienced judges. Furthermore, if you can select an experienced judge from outside the club, the area, or the division to be the tiebreaker judge, that further assures his/her neutrality.

    Dori Drummond
    D-8 IPDG

  5. Sybrian, the tiebreaker ballot is different at the bottom, where the tiebreaker judge must rank ALL contestants, it’s not just the different header.

    However, given the new(ish) requirement for the chief judge to rank ALL the contestants for forwarding to the next level, I’ve recommended to WHQ that the regular judges should also rank all the contestants. Otherwise, if you have several contestants that all the judges rank, leaving some with no score at all, they’ll be ranked solely by the tiebreaker ballot.

    Dori, yes, sometimes, you have someone who is exceptionally qualified to be the tiebreaker, due to being outside the area/division/district, or due to significantly more experience. I’m hopeful that all the judges would be well-qualified. My idea may work better at the international level (semi-finals and finals at the convention).

    1. In a District with a population the size of District 30, there probably is an abundance of very well-qualified judges for District, Division, and Area contests. Unfortunately, in a District that includes rural Areas with small clubs, it can be very challenging to find enough judges.

      Although District 8 encourages the selection of well-qualified judges for all contests, occasionally judges at Area contests have little or no previous judging experience. While we try to prevent such a situation from occurring, sometimes it is unavoidable. Therefore, efforts are made to ensure that the Tiebreaking judge is experienced.

      Dori Drummond, D-8 IPDG

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