What program was used to gather votes? Google forms. We used this because it tracks who is voting, ensuring people can only vote one time from their email account.
How many people voted? In the first round of voting 960 ballots were cast.
You can find a general description of how ranked choice voting results are calculated here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote. For the #WhatsMyName voting, 961 ballots were submitted via the survey. One ballot was blank, resulting in 960 ballots that could be used. With 960 ballots and 6 choices, a name needed 138 votes to be chosen in the first round (this is just greater than 1/7th of the ballots). In the first round of tabulation, Camden High School and H.E.N.R.Y. both passed this threshold and were chosen. H.E.N.R.Y had 14 first choice rankings more than the threshold and these were reallocated to the voters’ 2nd and 3rd choices. In the second round, no name reached the quota and the name with the lowest number of rankings was eliminated. These votes were transferred to the voters’ next preference. The elimination of the lowest ranked options and reallocation of preferences proceeded for 37 rounds until Victory High School was chosen. Another four name options were eliminated, and Camden Community High School was chosen in the 42nd round, followed by Minneapolis Northwest High School and Prince High School in the 43rd round.
We have five final names which are: Camden or Camden Community; Northwest or Minneapolis Northwest; H.E.N.R.Y – highly educated noteworthy resilient youth; Prince or Prince Rogers Nelson; and Victory.
Voting steps
Voting was open until May 23 on the school’s website. Once the votes are tallied, the resulting top three names will be presented to the Board of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The timeline of our process:
- April 17-May 3 was the1st round of voting.
- May 8- May 23 Final round of voting.
- Late May: Submit list of three submitted to Superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools.
- Late May: Superintendent gives names to MPS Board and General Council (legal authority).
- Summer 2023- Summer 2024: Search for vendor, and create branding and design (this process can take anywhere from six months to a year).
- 2024-2025: Fully implemented name change.