Set a Head Judge

The head judge is the judge whose placement carries extra weight when the app has to break a tie. At many balboa events one judge (often the rules expert) holds this role.

How the head judge affects scoring

There is exactly one behavior: the head judge is always a full voting judge. Their votes count in the base ranking exactly like everyone else's, and their placement of each participant is used as the tie-break before the order falls to the participant number.

The old "tie-break only" checkbox was removed — there is no second mode. The head judge is both a regular voter and the tie-break authority.

Steps

1. Open the competition: Manage → → Prelim Configuration (or Final Configuration).
2. In the judge grid, click Set as Head Judge on the judge you want to designate.
3. Confirm the designation.

Required before publishing

A head judge must be designated before results or scoresheets can be issued. The following actions are rejected (with a clear prompt) if the competition has no head judge:

• Publishing prelim or final results
• Publishing an anonymized or named scoresheet
• Downloading scoresheet PDFs
• Manually publishing via the admin tool
• Scheduling delayed publication

The designation is locked for organizers

The first head judge designation is an organizer decision. Once it is set, an organizer can no longer change or remove it — only an admin can reassign or clear the head judge. You will be asked to confirm the designation with an explicit warning about the lock before you make it.

If you set the wrong judge, contact an admin on the event to swap it.

Prelim → final: no carry-over

Advancing finalists to the final does not copy the prelim's head judge. Each competition (prelim and final) carries its own head judge designation, so set one on the final before you publish or issue finals scoresheets.

Removing the head judge

Admins only: click the head judge's row button again to remove the designation, then save. Until a head judge is set again, publishing and scoresheet download remain blocked.

Common mistakes

• Expecting the head judge to override the ranking. They do not. Their votes count like everyone else's, and they break ties in the order the scoring system defines (see Understanding prelim results).
• Forgetting to set the final's head judge. The final starts with no head judge — advancing finalists does not copy the prelim's.
• Trying to change the head judge after votes are in as an organizer. That lock exists so one person's accidental click doesn't quietly re-order a published ranking.