Posts Tagged
‘oscars’

With the 83rd Academy Awards this weekend, you might be wondering who will wear the best (and worst) dresses, which celebrity will cry the most in their acceptance speech, which movie will take home the most Oscars, and, of course, which film will win Best Picture. But have you considered how the voting process for these actors and films works? If you’ve ever complained about waiting in a line or had a frustrating experience on Election Day, just be thankful you’re not one of the 6,404 Oscar voters—or one of the ballot counters who individually checks and quadruple checks each vote.

While the whole process is shrouded in secrecy and security almost as intense as a papal conclave, technology plays very little role in it: ballots are filled out by hand, and each vote goes on to be counted by hand. Every Academy member votes for a winner in each category except Best Picture, in which they rank each of the ten films in order of preference. The ballots are sorted into piles of first-place votes, and the film with the largest stack of first-place votes, if over 50% of the total votes, wins. If not, the last place film’s ballots are redistributed to their second-place choices, a cycle that continues until one film has over 50% of the votes.

If you understood that last sentence and can get past the extreme complexity of the system, I commend you and hope one day you can earn the coveted privilege of Academy membership. If not, I offer you some voting suggestions to pick Oscar winners this Sunday:

• Do you like to include extra U’s in words like color and favorite? Vote for The King’s Speech.
• Do you enjoy crying for a solid 103 minutes? Mark your ballot for Toy Story 3, and make sure your tears don’t smear the ink.
• Are you looking for some motivation to go to the gym? Check the box next to Black Swan.
• Do you think you could manage to find a way to hack into the Oscar voting system? Sway those votes to support The Social Network.
• Are you intrigued by the mystery of graffiti artist Banksy? Vote for Exit Through the Gift Shop, and join me in anxiously awaiting his method of acceptance.
• Want to hear some tunes other than the music that cuts off long acceptance speeches? Vote for Country Song.
• Do you find catching up on sleep to be more beneficial than watching the Oscars? Sweet dreams, and consider cheering on Inception.

Best of luck picking the most winners at your viewing parties, and make sure to tune in to the Oscars this Sunday, February 27th at 8 PM ET on ABC.

•