A ranking CSV is useful when each row represents one person's preferences. The job is to preserve those preferences while turning the first three positions into points. Before importing, agree with your group that first, second and third choices earn 3, 2 and 1 points.
1. Put choice names in columns
The simplest format uses the headers first,second,third. Put the entry names below those headers, with one person per row. You may leave trailing choices empty. A ballot cannot have a third choice without a second choice.
Five illustrative ballots give Cedar 13 points, Oak 7 and Maple 6. Cedar appears first three times and second twice: (3 × 3) + (2 × 2) = 13. The last two ballots are intentionally shorter.
first,second,third
Cedar,Maple,Oak
Maple,Cedar,Oak
Cedar,Oak,Maple
Oak,Cedar,
Cedar,,With equal favorites, the same ballots give Cedar 5, Oak 4 and Maple 3 points. Download these sample ballots.
2. Map an existing survey export
If your export also includes timestamps or other questions, open the calculator and select the first-, second- and third-choice columns. Unselected columns are ignored. Review the selection carefully: a column containing numeric ranks, voter names or an unrelated answer is not a choice-name column.
If each candidate is its own column and cells contain numeric ranks, reshape the data so each row has the candidate names in first, second and third positions. Never silently drop a fourth or later preference from a survey that promised to count it. This calculator supports at most three choices per ballot.
3. Check names and repeated choices
The calculator combines names that differ only in capitalization or whitespace. It cannot know whether “Blue” means one album or another. Include an artist, author or other identifier in the choice name. To correct ambiguous names against a predefined shortlist, create a board and use its ballot-import review.
A ballot containing the same entry twice is invalid. Two identical complete ballots are different: they may come from two people with the same preferences, so both count. Review respondent identifiers in your source spreadsheet and decide which submissions to keep before importing. The calculator does not verify voters.
4. Calculate and reconcile
A full ballot contributes 6 total points, a two-choice ballot 5, and a first-only ballot 3. In the five-ballot example, the total is 26. Check those totals as well as the number of ballots. Open “Inspect the counted ballots” to compare individual responses with your source.
Ties share a rank and appear alphabetically. That display order does not select a winner. Entries with no votes need to be added under “Add candidates with no votes” if you want them included in the output.
5. Export the result and keep the evidence
The results CSV includes ranks, points, selection counts, the scoring rule and ballot count. Save your real result to Your boards to inspect it later in the same browser, and download a backup to preserve the entries and ballots together. Keep your original source spreadsheet separately.