License Plates: The People’s Rankings (2021 Tentative Seed List)

We promised this at some point, but whether you remember that or not, here it is: The People’s License Plate Rankings, an impartial conversion of the votes in the License Plate Bracket a few weeks ago into rankings.

Our method for calculating these was as follows:

• Take the champion (Wyoming) and assign it a score of 100.
• For every plate which lost to Wyoming, calculate its score using ‘Score = 100 – M,’ where M is the margin of defeat, in percentage points.
• For every plate which lost to a plate which lost to Wyoming, calculate its score using ‘Score = Opponent’s Score – M.’ Continue this for all the plates until every plate has a score.

The method is flawed in that it only measures binary choices. Consensus is valued more highly than enthusiasm. But, given the votes were binary, it’s the best we can offer. We’ll get additional clarity next summer during the 2021 License Plate National Championships, in which Wyoming will attempt to defend its title in a bracket seeded with these rankings (we reserve the right to move a state around if they introduce a new primary plate). And of course, the 2021 results will be used for 2022 seeding, assuming the heavens don’t stop us by then.

Now, the rankings, with each plate’s score in parentheses:

1. Wyoming (100.0)
2. North Dakota (81.0)
3. Arizona (75.6)
4. Georgia (72.0)
5. Florida (69.4)
6. Colorado (63.4)
7. Vermont (63.2)
8. Wisconsin (61.9)
9. South Dakota (60.9)
10. Alaska (59.6)
11. Maine (58.6)
12. Kentucky (56.0)
13. Utah (55.6)
14. Hawaii (52.6)
15. Indiana (51.4)
16. North Carolina (51.3)
17. Idaho (50.4)
18. Washington (50.0)
19. District of Columbia (48.4)
20. New Hampshire (47.6)
21. New Mexico (47.5)
22. West Virginia (45.1)
23. Oregon (42.6)
24. California (42.0)
25. Montana (41.8)
26. Nevada (40.3)
27. Pennsylvania (38.5)
28. Massachusetts (34.2)
29. Texas (31.0)
30. Mississippi (29.7)
31. Delaware (26.6)
32. New York (25.8)
33. South Carolina (25.5)
34. Louisiana (24.4)
35. Maryland (23.7)
36. Oklahoma (19.7)
37. Nebraska (19.3)
38. Illinois (19.3)
39. Virginia (19.1)
40. Minnesota (18.9)
41. Arkansas (17.5)
42. Alabama (16.3)
43. Missouri (16.0)
44. Kansas (15.6)
45. Michigan (12.8)
46. Rhode Island (11.3)
47. Iowa (10.3)
48. Connecticut (9.3)
49. Tennessee (8.5)
50. Ohio (8.1)
51. New Jersey (0.0)

Hawaii’s gonna crush New Jersey in next year’s first round.