Naming Our Snowplows - 2025

We are asking your help in naming six pieces of the City of Madison snowplowing fleet.

At first, it was only going to be five. But we received so many clever and popular suggestions, we're naming a bonus plow truck.

We are partnering with Wisconsin Salt Wise to host the naming election.

On this page, you will find:

An explanation on how the vote works (Vote is open from February 5 to February 24 at 8:00pm)

Vote in the Name Election

Photos of the trucks and the finalist names for each vehicle
Information on the submission deadline
The kind of names we were hoping to receive

The Plow Name Election

The election will be on the Wisconsin Salt Wise page.

Vote in the Name Election

The vote will open on February 4, 2025 and it will close at 8:00pm on February 24, 2025.

How You Will Choose the Winners

There are six plow trucks to name. Each plow has at least 11 name options. Yes, you have quite a lot of choices - and even then we had to leave a lot of good ones behind.

This is a ranked choice election. Basically, you choose your top five options from the available candidates for each truck.

The system will be set up to try to prevent a person from voting over and over and over again to skew the results - so please just participate one time.

When you go to the Wisconsin Salt Wise page, make your choices for each of the trucks available.

A detailed explanation about how ranked choice voting works to find the majority opinion of those who participate can be found below.

About Ranked Choice Elections

Explainer Videos

There are many helpful explainer videos that show how ranked choice works. Minnesota Public Radio, the Oscars, and the Board of Elections New York City have videos explaining this style of voting. There's likely others out there, too.

Why Do It This Way?

This style of election allows for multiple candidates and allows voters to pick multiple options. Since we expect to get quite a few interesting name suggestions, this seems to be the most fair way to let folks have some fun and select multiple options with their vote. And the results should also reflect the majority opinion the people who participate, too.

How the Voting Works (Long Explanation)

When our 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 more choices you make, the more likely your vote will have a say in choosing the final winner.

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

If candidate, or a plow name in our case, receives a majority of 1st Choice votes, the election is over, and this candidate wins.

To be clear, majority means the candidate receives more than half of all the votes cast. It does not mean just earning the most votes.

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

The candidate with the lowest first choice vote totals is eliminated.

The process 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.

If a majority is reached after the second round, the election is stopped and a winner is declared. If no candidate has a majority, the next lowest candidate is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the ones remaining based off the rankings made by the voters.

This process repeats itself until one candidate finally earns a majority of support from the voters.

If no candidate earns a majority and it gets down to just two candidates, then at this final stage of the election its the candidate with the most votes that is declared the winner.

The Kind of Names We Were Looking For

The goal is to bring some lighthearted joy.

Puns, references to pop culture, and outright silliness were all welcome. Sports, movies, music, television shows, popular Twitch or YouTube streamers - all of these interests were fair game for a silly plow name.

When choosing the finalists, there was a preference in selecting names that seemed unique and names that had a particular Madison flare so the names would be distinctly ours. We may not have been entirely successful since there's so many places that name trucks, but we sure did try.

Pickup truck plows snow on the contraflow lane along University Avenue and other areas on the west side.
Pickup truck plows snow on the contraflow lane along University Avenue and other areas on the west side.

This skinny single-seater plows snow from bus stops and sidewalks assigned to the Streets Division to maintain on the east side.
This skinny single-seater plows snow from bus stops and sidewalks assigned to the Streets Division to maintain on the east side.

This plow works on the near west side. It's main area is around Monroe Street, West High, and this general area. It is one of our standard snowplows.
This plow works on the near west side. It's main area is around Monroe Street, West High, and this general area. It is one of our standard snowplows.