Time to Vote for Your Electric Truck Names

posted October 3, 2024 – 1:41pm

Over the last two weeks, 792 unique names for Wisconsin’s first fully electric collection vehicles were submitted to the Streets Division. There were many great names submitted and a group of finalists were selected.

Now it’s time for you, the voters, the decide what name they will wear proudly.

How to Vote

The election is being hosted by our partner, Wisconsin Clean Cities.

In order to vote for the names of the trucks, please go to their website and select the names of both the electric side-loading truck and the electric rear-loading truck.

This will be a ranked-choice election. You will be able to rank the top five names you like on the digital ballots on their website.

You will have until 4:00pm on October 21, 2024 to vote.

The Finalist Names

For the electric side-loading truck that collects trash carts from the curb, the twelve names on the ballot are:

Karatechop Elvis
Trash Ketchum
Lenny Grabitz
Sherlock Ohms
Trash Gordon
TJ Kilowatt
Bob Yucker
Zapp Trashigan
Butch
Malodorous Rex
The Bindalorian
SCON-E

For the electric rear-loading truck that can be used for many different purposes, from collecting large items to collecting leaves, the twelve names on the ballot are:

Vin No Diesel
Plug Life
Electro
JJ Megawatt
Ion Maiden
Dr. Wattson
Power Ballad
Titus Detritus
George Dumpington
Shirley
Joule of the Streets
Trucky McTruckface

About the Trucks

More details about the trucks can be found at the Streets Division’s website.

About Wisconsin Clean Cities

Wisconsin Clean Cities is a non-profit established in 1994 that’s one of the US Department of Energy Clean City coalitions. Wisconsin Clean Cities supports the advance of alternative fuels and sustainable vehicle technology, including the electrification of fleets.

About Ranked Choice Voting

There are many helpful explainer videos that show how ranked choice works. Minnesota Public Radio, the Board of Elections New York City, and the Academy Awards, among many others entities have videos explaining this style of voting.

When the naming election begins, you will rank names by your order of your preference. The candidate you like most will be your 1st Choice, your next favorite will be your 2nd Choice and so on.

The vote counting begins by first tallying all of the 1st Choice votes.

If a candidate, or a truck name in this case, receives a majority of 1st Choice votes, the election is over and the one that has received a majority has won.

To be clear, a majority means they received more than half of all the votes cast. It does not mean earning just the most votes in this first round.

If no candidate receives a majority after counting the first choice votes, then the ranked choice portion begins.

The candidate with the lowest first choice vote totals will be eliminated. The process then looks at the second choice from the ballots that picked the eliminated candidate. The votes from the eliminated candidate are then distributed to the second choice those voters made. (Watching the videos really helps explain this part of the process.)

This process repeats itself until one candidate has finally received a majority of the votes.

If at the final elimination, when it's down to just two candidates, and if no one has earned a majority of the support, the candidate with the most votes at this phase is declared the winner.

Electric collection truck is lifting a trash cart with its robotic hand to empty it into the top of the truck.
This is the electric rear-loading truck.