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🏆 How to Spin Up a Winner’s Ballot in "Best of" or Readers' Choice

Walks you through the process of taking your completed voting ballot and creating a Winner’s Ballot to publicly display your results.

Jenny Limb avatar
Written by Jenny Limb
Updated this week

Outlined below are detailed instructions to help you complete the task.


✅ Step 1: Log In

  1. Log in using your CitySpark credentials.


📋 Step 2: Access Your Ballot

  1. From the dashboard, navigate to the Best Of Ballots on the left-hand menu.

  2. Select the ballot you wish to create a Winner’s Ballot from (typically your final voting ballot).


🧾 Step 3: Prepare Submissions

  1. Click the name of your ballot.

  2. Scroll to the Submissions section.

  3. Review and ensure your submission data is final. Perform any manual normalization as needed (refer to this normalization help video if necessary).

  4. Decide how many winners to include per category:

    • If showing all entries with votes, proceed to export.

    • If showing only the top entries, use the Star Submissions tool:

      • Click Star Submissions

      • Enter the number (e.g., 3 for top 3)

      • Choose to include or ignore ties


📤 Step 4: Export Winners

  1. Go to the Exports section.

  2. Click Export Winners:

    • If using star rankings, select Star Only

    • If including all submissions, select All

  3. Download the generated CSV file to your computer.


🆕 Step 5: Clone the Ballot

  1. Return to Best Of Ballots.

  2. Select Clone Ballot

  3. Then Select the Ballot to be cloned from the drop down menu.

  4. Give your new ballot a name (e.g., Your Example Ballot – Winners 2025).

  5. Choose whether to:

    • Copy original ads and sponsorships from the previous ballot

    • Skip importing submissions (you’ll do that next)

  6. Set Voting Style to No Write-ins

  7. Voting limitations aren’t required since this is a results-only ballot.

  8. Click Convert


📥 Step 6: Import the Winners

  1. From the Best Of Ballots list, select the new Winner’s Ballot.

  2. Go to Import > Import Final List

  3. Upload the CSV file you exported earlier.

  4. Confirm that the import is successful.

To verify:

  • Go to Ballot Builder

  • Open a Group and Category

  • You should now see winners with their rank and vote count.


🎨 Step 7: Update Design & Settings

  1. Go to Design Settings:

    • Edit landing page text under Landing Page > Landing Page Main Content

    • Update Meta Tag and Share Info under General

    • Customize rank labels under General:

      • Example: “Winner” for 1st, “Runner-Up” for 2nd, “Finalist” for others

      • Please back sure everything is how you would like before moving to the next step.


🚀 Step 8: Configure Publish & Result Display Settings

  1. Go to Publish:

    • Go to Show Results Settings

    • Make sure the toggle is ON to show results by Rank

      • Optional: Show results by Vote Count (Note: this will override existing ranks and cannot be undone)

    • Click Save And Publish

🔒 Optional: Privacy Settings

  • You can restrict access by using:

    • Private Mode and enter in a password.

      • This will require a password before you are able to view the Winners' ballot.


🧩 Optional: Group Finalists Under One Header

  1. Go to Ballot Builder

  2. Open a Group and Category

  3. For each entry you'd like grouped under a single finalist label:

    • Click Edit

    • Change the Rank to the same number (e.g., all “3” for Finalist)

    • Click Save

  4. Save again at the top or bottom of the page

  5. Refresh the ballot to see grouped results


🌐 Step 8: Update Domain Mapping

When you're ready to go live:

  1. Navigate to Org Settings > Domains

  2. Change your mapping to point to the new Winner’s Ballot

  3. Your results will now be viewable at the public URL


🎉 You're Done!

Your Winner’s Ballot is now live and displaying results beautifully! If you need assistance or have any questions, contact us at support@cityspark.com — we’re happy to help.

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