Voting procedure

To determine the best player, the three field umpires (not the goal umpires or boundary umpires) confer after each home-and-away match and award three votes, two votes and one vote to the players they regard as the best, second-best and third-best in the match, respectively. On the awards night, the votes from each match are tallied, and the player or players with the highest number of votes is awarded the trophy (subject to eligibility – see below).

The current voting system, which is the same as that of similar awards such as the Australian Football League (AFL)'s Brownlow Medal or the AFL Women's best and fairest, has been used since the award's inception. If two or more eligible players score the equal highest number of votes, each wins a trophy.

Ineligibility

The fairest component of the trophy is achieved by making ineligible any player who is suspended by the VFL Tribunal during the home-and-away season. An ineligible player cannot win the award, regardless of the number of votes she has received.

A player remains eligible for the award under the following circumstances:

• she is suspended during the finals or pre-season;
• she serves a suspension in the current season which carried on from, or was earned for an offence committed in, the previous season;
• she receives any sort of club-imposed suspension which is not recognised by the VFL Tribunal;
• she is found guilty by the VFL Tribunal of an offence which attracts only a financial penalty.

Umpires cast their votes for each game independent of eligibility criteria of the players; i.e. umpires can cast votes for players who have already been suspended during that season if they perceive them to be amongst the best on the ground.