Formula to lookup most common word in a results form

[HelloMrAnderson]

I have sent out a survey, which generates a results spreadsheet of names. I am looking for a formula to use that would essentially give me the "mode" (most common) name that is selected for each category. I tried using the mode function but since it isn't a numerical value it won't work. Any ideas?Leadership Change Ballot (Responses).xlsx

[XOR LX]

Hi.

Could you clarify your expected results so that we know what we're aiming for?

Regards

[HelloMrAnderson]

Yes! So what I need to know is the most common name in each category. This spreadsheet is reporting voting results, I am wanting to make it easier to find the winning vote for each category.

[XOR LX]

No! I meant: can you clarify what the results for the sheet you posted should actually be, not how they should be derived. I assume you can manually calculate these for now?

Also, in all but one of your cells the number of entries is 3. Is this pure coincidence? Can the number of entries in any given cell vary? Is there an upper bound on this number?

Regards

[HelloMrAnderson]

Each person that was sent the ballot was asked to give their top three choices for each position. Thus, each response should have three names associated with each category. However, if a person does not comply with the instructions then yes, it is possible to have cells with less than three responses. Three names should be the upper bound and zero names would be the lower bound. There will be a number of additional responses to the ballot so you are only looking at the first few that have come in.

[XOR LX]

Thanks.

And what happens if more than one person shares the accolade of being the most frequently occurring?

Regards

[HelloMrAnderson]

Then we get to revote

[XOR LX]

Haha! Sure, but what would you like to see as a result of the formula in those cases?

Regards