Under the voting system in place at the time, the central umpire awarded one vote to the best player on the ground in each match. When the votes were counted on 17 September, three players tied for the most votes with four each: Harry Collier of the Collingwood Football Club, Allan Hopkins of the Footscray Football Club, and Stan Judkins of the Richmond Football Club. It was the first time there had been a tie for the award;[2] however, at the time, the league did not recognise ties for the medal, and needed to break the tie.
The medal was not immediately awarded, as the rules governing the medal were at this time contradictory: one provision provided that the winner of the medal would be player who polled the largest percentage of votes against games played; and a second provision which had existed since 1924 stated that in the case of a tie for total votes, that the umpires be called together to decide upon on a winner among the tied players.[3][4][5] There were also three informal votes cast - that is, votes in which the committee was unable to determine for which player the umpire had intended to vote, which was not uncommon at the time[6] – one of which was understood to have read 'Collier' without differentiating between Harry Collier and his brother Albert (who finished one vote behind the leaders).[7]
The delegates of the Umpire and Permit Committee met on 19 September; it did not make a final decision, but elected to defer the matter to the next full meeting of all League delegates; and recommended that no medal be awarded, owing in large part to the informal votes.[8] The full League met on 26 September and rejected the recommendation, instead awarding the medal to Judkins on the 'percentage of votes vs games' provision – Judkins polled his four votes from 12 games, compared with Hopkins' 15 games and Collier's 18 games.[9] The outcome is viewed with irony, as the reason for Judkins' lower game count was that he was dropped to the seconds for the last five rounds due to poor form.[10]
In its 26 September meeting, the League appointed a subcommittee to revise the medal's rules, resulting in a new voting system and tiebreaker rule being established from the 1931 season.[9]
In 1980, the league removed all tie-breakers from its Brownlow Medal procedure, and in 1989 elected to award retrospective Brownlow Medals to all players who had previously polled the most votes but lost on a tie-breaker. As such, Judkins, Hopkins and Collier are all now considered joint Brownlow Medallists for the 1930 season.[11][12]
