Printable Contest Ballot in 30 Seconds

One ballot per attendee, one bubble per class, ballots dropped in a box by a deadline — then a public count. Add a name line and the ballot doubles as a door-prize entry, which reliably doubles participation. Keep classes few (three to five) so the line at the ballot box moves.

A judges' ballot is a working document — scoring lines or rank boxes per criterion (taste, presentation, originality) with room to add. A crowd ballot is a popularity instrument — one bubble per class and done. Describe which you're running; big contests often print both.

Yes — blind judging runs on numbers. Say 'entries numbered 1-12' and the ballot prints numbered rows with bubbles; the entry table keeps the master list mapping numbers to entrants. Named entries print exactly as you supply them.

Three ways: a head-to-head revote between the tied entries (print a few extra blank ballots), a tiebreaker criterion on the judges' sheet ('presentation breaks ties'), or shared ribbons — which is honestly fine at a bake-off. Decide before the count and note it on the emcee card, not the ballot.

Four to six classes with up to a dozen numbered entries each fits a portrait sheet comfortably. A county-fair slate of many classes is better split into one sheet per category group — say the full list and EZdoc lays out clean, unbroken sections.

Yes — describe the classes without entries and you get numbered rows and empty bubbles under each header: the reusable master. Save it as a template, write entries in by hand or retype them each year, and photocopy the stack in one run.