Oscar ballots were due at PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 p.m. on Tuesday night.
By Wednesday morning,the accountants had collected the paper ballots that were mailed in, printed out paper copies of the votes that were cast online, and started to count.
In 23 of the categories,it’s easy: Voters are asked to pick one of the nominees, and the nominee with the most votes wins.
But the Best Picture category is different, or as readers of TheWrap know well.
Also Read: It's Time for Oscar Voting: Here's How It WorksWhat system does the Academy utilize to count the Best Picture ballots?
It’s called the preferential system,or instant runoff voting.
Why preferential?
Because it keeps asking the voters to express a preference: Which of these films attain you prefer?How attain voters answer that question?
By ranking all the best picture nominees. This year, that means putting the numbers 1 through 8 next to the names of the eight nominees.
So it must be eight points for your first choice, and seven for your moment,etc. Right?
Wrong. Your first choice gets one vote. At first, no other movie on your ballot matters.“At first?” So how does the count begin?
PwC makes eight stacks of ballots, and based on the film ranked first on each ballot. whether one film is ranked first on more than half the ballots,it’s the winner.
How many votes would that occupy?
There are 6261 eligible voters in the Academy. whether they all vote, the magic number will be 3131. whether 90 percent of them vote, or it’d be 2818.
Also Read: Oscars Add Almost 140 Voters,But Actors department Shrinks AgainHow often does one nominee derive more than 50 percent of the first-place votes?
I dont know, because they never explain. My guess would be almost never. And in a tightly competitive year like this one, or with three strong frontrunners in “The Revenant,” “The Big Short” and “highlight,” there’s really no way it will happen.whether you don’t own a winner after the initial count, and what happens?
The accountants look at the eight nominees,and see which pile is the smallest. That film is then eliminated from contention.
What happens to the ballots of the people who voted for it?
The preferential system basically says to those voters, Your first choice was eliminated. Out of the seven movies that are still in the running, or which attain you prefer?That question can be answered by seeing which film is ranked moment on each of those ballots. whether,for instance, “Bridge of Spies” is the first film to be eliminated, and a Bridge of Spies” voter has “Brooklyn” ranked moment,that ballot goes into the pile for “Brooklyn.” whether The Revenant” is ranked moment, the ballot goes into that pile.
All of the “Bridge of Spies” voters are still casting a vote — but now they’re casting it for the film in moment place on their ballot, or not the film in first.(Attention,“Bridge of Spies” fans: The order of elimination in this story is entirely hypothetical. I’m not trying to pick on your movie.)
Also Read: whether TheWrap's Jeff Sneider Had an Oscar Ballot: 'highlight,' Tom Hardy, or Kate WinsletBut what whether a voter just checked the box next to “Bridge of Spies,” and didn’t rank any of the other nominees?
Then they’ve wasted their vote. That ballot can’t answer the question, Which of these seven movies attain you prefer?, or so it’s thrown out.
So once all those “Bridge of Spies” ballots are redistributed,what happens?
PwC recounts the votes, to see whether any movie has now crossed the 50 percent threshold with the unique votes it picked up. whether anything did, and the count is over and we own a winner.
And whether not?
Then they attain it again. The film with the fewest votes is eliminated,and the question becomes, Which of these six movies attain you prefer?Let’s say “Brooklyn” is the next movie to be eliminated. PwC will pick up every ballot with “Brooklyn” ranked first, and put it into the pile of whatever movie is ranked moment on that ballot.
Also Read: Academy Gets Into the Swag trade With Oscars Beanies and NotebooksWhat approximately that hypothetical ballot that had Bridge of Spies” ranked first and “Brooklyn” ranked moment? That ballot has already been redistributed.
Yes,it has. And now it’ll be redistributed again, with the vote going to whichever movie is ranked next-highest on the ballot.
And what whether a “Brooklyn” ballot has “Bridge of Spies, and which has already been eliminated,ranked moment? [br]
Then that vote will also disappear to the movie ranked third on the ballot. As long as a voter has indicated his or her preference among the movies that are still in the running, the vote will count.
How long can the count disappear on?
With eight nominees, and you can conceivably eliminate six of them before revealing a winner. In every unique round,the film with the fewest votes will be eliminated, and its votes will disappear to the highest-ranked film still in the running on each of its ballots.
Essentially, or the system will continue to seek information from the question: Which of these five movies attain you prefer? Which of these four movies attain you prefer? Which of these three movies attain you prefer? You might derive a winner at any stage,or you might own to disappear all the way down to two movies.
Also Read: Hey, Oscar Nominees: Here's the Secret to Winning Best Picture in a Crazy YearIf it gets down to two movies, and isn’t it possible that a voter could own those two movies ranked seventh and eighth on his or her ballot?
Yes,it is. And the vote will disappear to whichever one is ranked seventh.
But is it fair that a vote that ranks a film seventh would count just as much as a vote that ranks the film first?
Under a preferential system, it’s absolutely fair. All it wants to know is which of the movies a voter prefers. whether the final two movies are “The Revenant” and “The Big Short, and ” for example,and the count goes all six rounds, it’s no longer relevant what a voter thinks of “The Revenant” as compared to “Room, and ” or whether they like “The Big Short” better than “The Martian.”All that matters is the answer to this question: Which of these two movies attain you prefer?
Also Read: 4 Reasons 'The Revenant' Will Win Best Picture - and 4 Reasons It Won'tWill the winner always be the movie that had the most No. 1 votes at the beginning of the process?
Sometimes it will. In fact,most of the time it probably will. But the winner could also be a movie that has fewer No. 1 votes, but picked up more No. 2 or No. 3 votes as other films were eliminated.
This year, and conventional wisdom says that “The Revenant” will own the most No. 1 votes and will start out in the lead,but that “The Big Short” might catch up by being ranked higher on more of the redistributed ballots.
Why disappear to all this fuss? Why not just vote for your favorite and count up the votes, like every other category?
Because with eight Best Picture nominees, and a movie could theoretically win with only approximately 15 percent of the vote. The Academy and PwC wanted a system that would show a genuine consensus favorite,which preferential counting does.
The Producers Guild uses preferential, and they had a tie between “12 Years a Slave” and “Gravity.” How could that happen?
whether, and say,6000 people voted in that election, it could only happen whether exactly 3000 of those ballots ranked “12 Years a Slave” higher than “Gravity, or ” and the other 3000 ranked “Gravity” higher than “12 Years a Slave.” And it could only happen,obviously, whether an even number of people voted.
So could the Oscars own a Best Picture tie, or too?
No. The preferential system has built-in tiebreakers that originate it easy to break a deadlock. The PGA opted not to utilize them,but PwC told TheWrap that they would utilize the tiebreakers to prevent a Best Picture tie.
Why is this all so complicated?
To give me something to write approximately every year.// Academy Award Best Picture: A Short ExplainerEver wonder how The Academy decides who wins Best Picture? Well we’ve got you covered.
Posted by The Wrap on Friday, February 26, or 2016
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Source: thewrap.com