->'''Random Judge:''' Oh Lord, what godawful playing! Who let her enter the competition?\\
'''Sachio Kajiwara:''' She's magnificent. We have a winner!\\
'''Random Judge:''' WHAT!!? Kajiwara, she SUCKS! You can't be serious!\\
'''Sachio Kajiwara:''' I'm the president, and I say she wins, so she wins. That's it.\\
'''Random Judge:''' ''[groans]''
-->-- '''The judging panel''' during the 17th Piano Competition in Memory of Aoyama -- ''Manga/KanonChihoSaito''

A "One Judge to Rule Them All" competition is a contest where the winner is decided by a panel of judges who vote to determine which contestant did best -- but where there's one judge whose vote outweighs the votes of all the other judges combined, thus making them completely irrelevant.

It can be any sort of competition: art, music, dance, sports, beauty pageant, science fair project, doesn't matter. How the contestants are evaluated, whether the judges have to assign scores to all of them or just pick one as the best, doesn't matter either. It may even happen that the person who singlehandedly makes the final choice actually isn't one of the judges, but someone else with the power to meddle in the matter -- the financial sponsor of the competition, for example, or a local political authority. That's okay, too. The one important thing to establish that a contest is being judged in such a way is this: there must be one individual who can overturn whatever decision the panel of judges has pronounced, and declare a different contestant the winner. This condition is both necessary and sufficient.

Curiously, more often than not, this trope tends to favor the heroes of the story. You'd think winning a contest this way would be considered unfair at best and cheating at worst... but no: the righteous heroes are almost always the ones who, facing unbeatable competitors, or a hostile judging panel, or both, still end up the winners thanks to the DeusExMachina intervention of a providential protector. Also, the trope seems to be, for some reason, far more common in stories targeted at a female audience, to the point that this trope is sometimes known to fans of {{Shoujo}} {{Manga}} as an "Aoyama Panel" competition after [[Manga/KanonChihoSaito a popular instance of it]].

A sister trope to GoldenSnitch. The difference being, this trope is about stupid judging rules rather than stupid points rules. The CrackDefeat is a victim of this, and the winner of a DarkHorseVictory is a beneficiary of it. If they're a HarshTalentShowJudge, say your prayers. Contrast the JokerJury, where it's openly a mockery of justice.

Something which is occasionally TruthInTelevision and ''looks'' like this trope, but isn't, is when one judge has the authority to break a tie. Say there are four judges, and two have voted each way, whichever contestant Chief Judge Bob voted for is the winner. In such a case his vote doesn't outweigh three others, it's merely worth "one-and-a-bit" in order to prevent a stalemate.

----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/KanonChihoSaito'', it's this manga that made the words "In Memory of Aoyama" a common expression among shoujo fans. Kanon Hayashi, the heroine, enters a very high-level competition for piano players named "17th Piano Competition in Memory of Aoyama." (Who this Aoyama was, we are never told.) The man sponsoring the competition is a rich playboy, Sachio Kajiwara. He is president of the judging panel as well. Kanon is not a good pianist: she started learning piano a few weeks before the competition, and can't even play Happy Birthday without making mistakes. However, she is also a very attractive young woman... and, when she is introduced to Kajiwara, she says some things that make Kajiwara misunderstand that Kanon will sleep with him if he makes her win! Come the day of the competition, Kanon plays horribly. All the judges are appalled at her poor performance. Kajiwara, however, outvotes them all with his single vote (it's one of his powers as president, as he explains himself) and makes Kanon win the Exceptional Special Prize.
* In ''Manga/BeautyPop'' Shougo Narumi is training to be a beautician. His dad is himself a very famous beautician, and he owns and runs the prestigious Narumi Beauty School. At one point, the school organizes a contest for beauticians-in-training. Shougo enters the contest, and loses: a guy named Niida is declared the winner by the judges, while Shougo gets second place. Daddy Narumi then arrives and scolds the judges for being incompetent fools: it's obvious, he says, that his sonny Shougo is the best beautician! Then, by his authority as owner and principal of the school, he overturns the judges' decision and declares Shougo winner of the contest. To his credit, Shougo is not happy at all.
* In ''[[Manga/AimForTheAce Ace wo Nerae]]'' Nishiko School's Tennis Club will send a five-person team to a tournament. There are strict, time-honored rules as to how the five representatives are to be chosen: the club members will be tested, their skills will be evaluated by the sempai, and, in the end, the five who perform best will get a place in the team. Hiromi Oka, the heroine of the manga, does horribly in the tests... however, Coach Jin Munakata claims that she has "hidden potential" and, by his own authority, against the judgement of the sempai, gives her one of the five places.
** Hiromi, who actually didn't want a place in the team, tries everything she can think of to turn down the opportunity -- but Munakata forces her to be in the team against her will. This is a particularly twisted example of the trope, as the one person in charge has absolute power, not only over the judges, but over the contestants as well.
* ''Manga/NodameCantabile'' has what is perhaps a borderline case, but worth mentioning. Megumi Noda wants a scholarship to study piano in Paris. Seiko Miyoshi runs an organization that gives scholarships in Paris to music students who have received recognition for their achievements. That's not the case of Megumi, not in the least: she never stood out at school, never won a prize, never did anything worth recognition. The examiners in charge of judging the achievements of the candidates would never have picked her for a scholarship. However, by Seiko's personal intervention, Megumi is one of the students who are awarded a scholarship that year. The reason? Megumi is Seiko's son's girlfriend...
* Downplayed in ''Manga/SkipBeat'', where Kyoko impresses the talent agency president with her unorthodox methods. However, the panel ultimately turns her down due to her hostile nature and inability to love others, forcing Kyoko to resort to even less orthodox methods to enter the agency.
** She actually impresses ''all'' of the judges, they still fail her though. But the president thinks up a new section just because of her inspiration and passion. So this is an example of the trope failing, but still prospering.
** Also, the (a?) winner of the competition is eventually placed in the same section, making this a subversion, alteration and holding true to the trope, all at the same time!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In ''ComicBook/BlueMonday'', a radio station holds a contest for Adam Ant concert tickets. Bleu, a huge Ant fan, crushes the competition with her performance of ''Stand and Deliver'', but the judge declares another girl to have won since she had bigger breasts.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/{{Caddyshack}}'', the official rules for the country club scholarship are never stated, but it's obvious to everyone that what really matters is being on the good side of Judge Smails, who owns the club. This is why Danny spends half the movie sucking up to him. When Danny decides to act as Webb's substitute in the final match against Smails, the Judge flat out states that if he plays, he will be removed from consideration from the scholarship. He plays anyways[[spoiler:, and it is implied that Czervik pays Danny the equivalent of the scholarship from his winnings after the match is over.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* The ''Literature/ApprenticeAdept'' book ''Blue Adept'' pulls a convoluted version of this in the Harmonica Duel between Stile and Clef:
** In the first match, there is a general audience and a panel of experts, and their votes count equally. Stile manages a draw by playing to the general audience, as he saw that Clef concentrated on technical skill and ignored the general audience. A play-off round is setup, this time with Stile and Clef playing in duet, and the judging done by the general audience, the Games computer itself, ''and'' the panel of expert musicians, and while they're waiting for it to start, Stile obligingly tells Clef about tapping into the emotion of the music and connecting with the audience. When they start playing together, Clef adds that information to his technical superiority and completely outplays Stile, who knows that he's being outplayed and steps back to provide a solid foundation for Chef to build on.\\
\\
As Stile is congratulating Clef on his win, the Game Computer announces the winner is ... Stile. While both the Computer and the audience went for Clef, whoever the panel of experts voted for was the winner in this instance. They went for Stile, reasoning that 1) Clef improved more by playing with Stile than Stile did by playing with Clef, 2) Stile put the quality of the performance as a whole ahead of his desire to show off his own skill and 3) thus, Stile proved to be the superior ''musician'', even though Clef had the superior ''technique''. The GC isn't supposed to comprehend people well enough to judge that way (and avoids publicly revealing its real capacities), and the audience wasn't so much there to vote as to see how the performers interacted with an audience (Clef ignored them to start). A perfect example of the trope, but the reasoning's more SecretTestOfCharacter.
* Dumbledore pulls one of these at the end of the first ''Literature/{{Harry Potter|and the Philosophers Stone}}'' book, and actually does it during the celebration of Slytherin winning the House Cup. He stands up in the middle of the event, awards Gryffindor, formerly in last place, just enough points to win, and then magically changes the Slytherin banners and bunting to Gryffindor colors.
** In the fourth book, Ludo Bagman can't strictly do this, but still attempts to skew Harry's placement in the Triwizard Tournament with weighted point allocation. [[spoiler: It turns out he was heavily in debt and had a huge wager riding on Harry.]]
* The ''[[Literature/TheBerenstainBears Berenstain Bear Scouts]]'' book (see [[Quotes/OneJudgeToRuleThemAll quotes page]]) has the cubs debating on which merit badge they should go after next. Miss Stickler, who is their scout leader just for this book due to the usual scout leader running for mayor ([[spoiler:she doesn't win, by the way]]), turns down all their choices by telling them they're going for the History Merit Badge, which the cubs didn't even know existed.
* The Royal Council in the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series has a similar rule. If the Monarch and Monarch's Own Herald vote as a block, they win, no matter how the rest of the council votes. Both are [[IncorruptablePurePureness Heralds]], and the job of Monarch's Own is to be the ruler's closest confidant, so any disagreements they might have would almost certainly be ironed out before the vote anyway. Decision-making power therefore rests with the Monarch, and this rule serves as a check on his or her power; if even your closest adviser disagrees with you in a formal vote, it's time to stop and reevaluate. This only comes up in one book, as the inner doings of the Royal Council are rarely a major part of the plot.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''
** In ''Literature/TheWeeFreeMen'', Granny Aching is not even technically a judge at the sheepdog competitions. However, everyone knows that her acceptance is the real grand prize of the competition.
** Granny Weatherwax pulls off the same trick at the Lancre Witch trials -- twice.
** Ponder Stibbons of the Unseen University manages to inadvertently become this -- he gradually gets saddled with all the jobs that require actual work. Because the University Council works on a job/vote system and not a person/vote system, and because one of the jobs he got was the one that was supposed to make certain that no one got too many jobs, this results in him having a majority vote on the Council (and forming a quorum on his own). He doesn't actually abuse this (it's only revealed because he ends up having to intervene in a conflict between UU's Archchancellor and Pseudopolis' Archchancellor -- wizard wars are ''bad'' things), but still.
* PlayedWith in the fourth book of ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians.'' The Council of Cloven Elders is voting on whether or not to [[spoiler: listen to Grover's claims that Pan is dead]]. When it comes to a vote, Dionysus believes him, and though he notably ''doesn't'' win the entire vote, his does count twice (since he's a god), and it ends up being a tie instead of the loss the vote would have been if he were a normal judge.
* {{Discussed}} by Lightsong in ''Literature/{{Warbreaker}}'', when the Court of Returned must vote on whether or not to go to war with Idris. In theory, each Returned has one vote, and whichever position gets the majority of the votes wins. But since Lightsong and Blushweaver are the only Returned to hold Lifeless Commands, their votes are the only ones that actually mean anything. Even if every single other Returned votes for war, if Lightsong and Blushweaver don't release their Commands, Hallendren's Lifeless won't march.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Painter In The Wind'' is a live action Korean TV series, the smash hit of 2008. In 18th century Korea, Yun Bok is a student at the state-sponsored Art School. Graduates from that school automatically become members of the Imperial Academy who work directly for the Emperor and take orders only from him. For their final exam, students must submit a painting to a judging panel made of twelve experts. The names of eleven of these judges are made known to the public: they are all high-ranking aristocrats renowned for their knowledge of the fine arts. The twelfth judge, however, chooses to keep his identity hidden. Yun Bok's painting for the exam depicts an erotic scene at a river with several naked women bathing, a truly scandalous subject for a graduation project. He gets failing marks from the eleven known judges. Only the anonymous judge gives him a passing mark. Now, according to the rules, Bok should have failed the exam... however, when the final results are posted, his name is among the students who will become Academy Members! This is such a flagrant violation of the rules, the school almost explodes in a riot -- until a courtier reveals that the twelfth judge is none other than the Emperor himself. Needless to say, the riot dies out very quickly.
* Another Korean TV series, '' Yi San'', tells the story of the life of Emperor Jeongjo. Episode 71 features the Triennial Examinations, where scholars from all the country compete to win positions as court officials. Jeongjo has befriended a certain young scholar, and wants to bring him into the court. This scholar goes through the Examinations and fails; his final score is too low to earn an official position. Jeongjo, however, by his authority as Emperor, overturns the decision of the panel of judges and declares that his friend has taken ''first place'' in the Examinations and won the highest position!
* On an episode of ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' Carla enters the Miss Boston Barmaid contest, even though the winner is always a buxom, blonde bimbo (except for the year Diane won). Carla aces every round and convinces herself she's going to win, until the end of the match when the emcee declares a random blonde bimbo contestant the winner because: "Look at her!"
* ''Series/LastComicStanding'' had a panel of four celebrity judges in the Season 2 semifinals. However, [[http://www.realitytvcalendar.com/shows/lastcomic2.html it was revealed]] that the unseen producers' votes counted for 50% of each contestant's score, with the total scores from the celebrity judges counting for the other 50%. In addition, some of the finalists who advanced were revealed to be clients or employees of the producers.
* In ''The Marriage Ref'', a panel of three judges votes on whose side in a marital dispute they take. Then the host simply picks one of them to side with.
* ''Series/DragRace'': Whenever Creator/{{Rupaul}} is one of the judges for a show in the franchise (e.g. on ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'' or ''Series/RuPaulsDragRaceUK'') then she gets the final say, doesn't pretend otherwise, and sometimes lampshades it to the point of hilarity. Ru is always [[PimpedOutDress dressed the most spectacularly]], always imperiously claps her hands and declares "I have made my decision," and in previous seasons even had [[GaussianGirl special lighting]] compared to the other judges.
* Averted on ''Series/ProjectRunway'': While Heidi Klum is the face of the show (along with Tim Gunn), her inability to sway Michael Kors and Nina Garcia led to Mondo Guerra's CrackDefeat in Season 8.
* Near the end of season 7 of ''Series/CanadasWorstDriver'', Afiya is unanimously chosen by the experts to graduate, but host Andrew Younghusband is not convinced that she has really reformed herself. During the part of the episode where he reveals who that episode's graduate is, he implies that as the host who gives the drivers their licenses back, he might overrule the experts and not give Afiya's license back. Whether or not he has such a power (if he does, there are times where he hasn't used it), he relents and Afiya graduates.
* One episode of ''Series/{{Psych}}'' had an ''Series/AmericanIdol''-style show that had a panel of three judges, but [[Creator/TimCurry Nigel St. Nigel]] was really the only one with any clout. He doesn't let one of the other judges ''speak'', for crying out loud.
* There's a variant during the 4th season of ''{{Series/House}}'', when House says something like "Who thinks we should do [X]?". His entire team raises their hands. He then says "And who thinks their vote counts?" while raising his own hand.
* A political variation in ''Series/Foundation2021''. The Galactic Empire is ruled by a triumvirate of Brother Dawn, Brother Day and Brother Dusk, clones of Emperor Cleon I. However, it is clear that Brother Day is the one with real decision making power -- Dawn is a child and his role is to observe and learn, while Dusk has a fair bit of power as the elder statesman, but his role is to advise Day in private and will not oppose him publicly.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sports]]
* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with the [[PantyFighter Lingerie]] [[FanserviceFauxFight Fighting]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Championships]], which has one 'Guest' judge per show (usually someone famous), who presumably scores the bouts honestly. However, the other two judges are part of the show, and can therefore guarantee the result that the booker wants regardless.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' parodies the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' example in [[http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20020923 this]] strip.
-->'''Gandledorf:''' Another session of Hoggelrynth comes to a close, and with 534 points, the House Cup is awarded to [[{{Villains}} Wunnybun]]! [[HufflepuffHouse Pooperscoop is second with 423. Poininoh is third with 253.]] And in last place: Snackewyrm at minus a billion points. Mostly due to flagrant disregard of our "No Keg Party" policy by [[IdiotHero Torg]].\\
...\\
But wait! I have some last minute points to award. My niece is a member of House Snackewyrm this year. A trillion points to her for being so gosh darn cute! Now, by my calculations, ''Snackewyrm wins the House cup! In your face! IN ... YOUR ... FACE ... WUNNYBUN! '''NYAH'''!''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' revolved around Doug and Patty's fierce competition between their entries for the name of their new middle school. When the judges are about to announce their pick, one of them, Bill Bluff, claims the fact that he owns the school gives him the right to name it and as such names it the "Beebe Bluff Middle School" after his daughter, making the whole contest and conflict of the episode pointless.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Lisa writes then-president [[UsefulNotes/BillClinton Clinton]] asking him to overturn the outcome of a school band competition. He obliges. Though in fairness, the tactic the opposing band used (pulling out glowsticks in the shape of an American flag) was technically against the rules, [[ChewbaccaDefense but the rule wasn't enforced because of patriotic fervor.]]
** When the Olympic Committee is choosing the next city to host, the man at the podium reads a letter from Lisa. She says she understands her town is too small for such an honor, and she'd be satisfied if they could just pass the torch through it. The man reading her letter to the Olympic committee is moved by this, and ends with:
-->Well, I say we don't bring her the torch. I say we bring her the Olympic Games! - Who is with me?\\
{{Beat}}\\
Well, I don't care. It's my decision.
* In the ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'' movie ''Into the Wild Green Yonder'' Leela and her eco-feminist group are on trial in front of the Supreme Court. They receive votes from the five female judges, and believe they've won the case, except the female judges votes count half what the male judges do. One of them says, "It's a humiliating and biased system, but it works."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln occasionally asked his cabinet to vote on whether or not he should pursue some policy and then invoked this trope if he didn't like the result of their vote. It's possible Abe's strategy could be justified in this manner: When you are having trouble making a decision, it's sometimes helpful to have something outside yourself "make" the decision and then weigh whether you are comfortable accepting that judgment. Flip a coin, roll some dice, or poll your friends, it all amounts to solidifying one of the scenarios enough for you to have a gut reaction to it ("Shall I go to camp or get a summer job? The dice say ''job'', but I can't stand the thought of missing out on camp. Guess that's decided"). It's been said that Abraham loved to see his cabinet debate, because it showed him alternate viewpoints. He might have specifically picked a divided political cabinet for this reason.
* A real world example was the Tricameral Legislature of South Africa in the 1980s. "Coloreds" (South Africans of mixed racial descent) and Indians (not blacks, you'll note) were given their own legislative bodies... which carried weights of 25 and 13 when electing the State President, as opposed to the white body's weight of 50. Any decisions that the non-white voting bodies blocked could be overridden by the President's council, of which the Colored and Indian bodies appointed just 15 of 60 members. The non-white voting bodies essentially had no power at all. The non-white bodies could take advantage of splits among the whites; if the whites were split 37-13 or worse and the non-whites voted all as the white minority of 13, they could still pass an issue against the majority of white voters.
* Peter I of Brazil created Backwards Parliamentarism (that's right!) in 1824. It's exactly like the British Parliament, except that the emperor turned himself into the Moderator Power, which can overpower the decisions of the other three powers combined.
* The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many of the inductees are people who Jann Wenner & co. like a lot (e.g. Buffalo Springfield) and the people who have not been inducted yet are those who Jann Wenner & co. dislike (e.g. Music/{{Chicago}} or disco-era acts).
* In the American legal system, a judge is able to unilaterally overrule the jury's verdict (judgment as a matter of law/judgment notwithstanding the verdict in civil cases, judgment of acquittal for criminal). This happens when the jury finds in favor of one party (in a civil case) or that a defendant is guilty (in a criminal case; if the jury finds a defendant not guilty, the judge can't do anything about it thanks to double jeopardy) but the judge feels an adequate case is not presented to support their decision. A judge will most typically make this ruling on a motion by the side that lost, but on occasion a judge might do so ''sua sponte'' (on the court's own initiative) (typically if the jury's verdict is just obviously wrong and the losing party has inexplicably failed to make a motion). \\
\\
The justification for allowing this is that sometimes trial will reveal information that makes it perfectly obvious to anyone who understands the legal issues that one side or the other has won, but sometimes the jury either doesn't understand the law or is biased against the party who should win; in such circumstances, the judge should be permitted to overturn a jury verdict. In civil cases, this is usually because the judge had already decided the case as a matter of law ''after'' the trial (typically because the lawyer for that party had screwed up explaining why he/she should win on the law at the summary judgment stage before the trial), but wanted to give the jury a shot at it in case it agreed with him (trial judges love to have the support of a jury in deciding cases, because it makes their decisions much easier to defend on appeal). In criminal cases, this happens less often, as jury verdicts are much more important in criminal law, and the jury can only be overturned if it convicts the defendant,[[note]]Again, double jeopardy prevents ''any'' judge from overturning a jury acquittal except on ironclad proof that the jury was bought or otherwise had 100% made up its mind before the trial. This has ''literally'' never happened in the entire 200-plus-year history of American criminal justice. There have been cases of juries having already made their decision before the trial, namely in Jim Crow-era trials of white men lynching blacks, in which the jury acquitted regardless of the evidence, but in ''these'' cases the judges were equally biased and let the ruling stand. The only case of which we have record where a not-guilty verdict on the merits was vacated [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Aleman it was a bench trial (i.e. there was no jury and the judge made the findings of fact) and the judge had been bought]].[[/note]] but judges will intervene and overturn a conviction if they believe that the jury was biased, which is, statistically, a serious risk for certain types of crimes (like sex crimes) or defendants (especially minorities).
* Partially in effect in Mock Trial competitions, which have two judges, one of whom makes all the rulings. They do carry equal weight in the scoring, but it's still the one judge who determines whether evidence and testimony is allowable.
* By all accounts, this is how the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings board works: There is a voting panel that decides on which films get which ratings, but the MPAA chairman can arbitrarily override panel decisions he disagrees with. Former chair Jack Valenti was notorious for this, as mentioned in the documentary ''Film/ThisFilmIsNotYetRated''.
[[/folder]]
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