The winner of the Heisman Trophy, to be announced Saturday night, will be decided above all by journalists. Of the 929 total votes, 870 were allotted to members of the news media, who are equally spread among six geographic regions like a gridiron electoral college. Anyone else could have voted online to help determine the ranking on a single public ballot, which consists of three spots, for first, second and third place.
But the suffrage is also extended to a special class of citizen, whose number during the voting window was 58: past Heisman winners. (Rashaan Salaam, who won the trophy in 1994 as a running back at Colorado, died on Monday, when the two-week voting period concluded.