Who votes for the Heisman Trophy? Explaining the voting results for college football's top award

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• Who votes for the Heisman Trophy?
• How does Heisman Trophy voting work?
• Heisman Trophy voting deadline
• Has there been a tie in Heisman voting?
• Heisman Trophy voting history

The Heisman Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to the most outstanding player in NCAA football, isn’t just a piece of hardware — it’s a crown, instantly elevating its recipient to legendary status and a permanent place in football history.

Yet the choice of who earns this coveted honor rests in the hands of a highly select voting group, tasked with determining which singular talent rises above the rest to claim the sport’s most prestigious individual accolade.

Who votes for the Heisman Trophy?

The Heisman Trophy is voted on by a relatively exclusive electorate, primarily composed of three groups: media representatives (the largest group), former Heisman winners, and the fan vote.

The first group, media representatives, is the largest. It consists of 870 members — including sports journalists, broadcasters, and media personalities who regularly cover college football — across the United States. These 870 votes are evenly distributed across six geographic sections to help mitigate regional bias, with 145 media voters in each section.

• Far West: AZ, CA, HI, ID, MT, ND, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY
• Mid Atlantic: DC, DE, MD, NC, NJ, PA, SC, VA, WV
• Mid West: IA, IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI
• North East: CT, MA, ME, NH, NYC, NY, RI, VT
• South: AL, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, TN
• Southwest: AR, CO, KS, MO, NE, NM, OK, TX

Next is former Heisman Trophy winners, where every living winner receives a vote. The number of votes from this group varies slightly year to year, but is typically around 60.

Last, and the most miniscule, is the fan vote. A single, collective vote is awarded to the results of a fan voting program, where millions can participate.

Per the Heisman site, the total number of voters in the 2025 race is 930.

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How does Heisman Trophy voting work?

The Heisman Trophy uses a weighted positional voting system — specifically a form of the Borda Count—to determine the winner. This method ensures that a player is rewarded not only for being the top choice on a ballot but also for having broad, national support among the voters.

Roughly 930 voters receive a ballot on which they must select three players and rank them in order of preference. Each vote is correlated with a specific number of points.

The player who accumulates the highest total number of points is declared the winner of the Heisman.

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Heisman Trophy voting deadline

Ballots for the Heisman Trophy were due on Monday, Dec. 8 at 5:00 p.m. ET.

The ballots were distributed to electors on Dec. 4, and the online ballot was released on Dec. 6. 

The winner will be announced the night of Dec. 13, with the ceremony airing nationally on ABC.

Has there been a tie in Heisman voting?

No, there has never been an official tie in the Heisman Trophy voting. The weighted voting system (3 points for 1st place, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd) makes an exact tie highly improbable.

The closest vote in history was in 2009, when Alabama running back Mark Ingram beat out Stanford running back Toby Gerhart by the slimmest margin ever: 28 points. 

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Heisman Trophy voting history

Here are the top three for each Heisman Trophy vote, dating back to 1980.

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