Academy Awards are chosen using two different systems, one for Best Picture and one for all the rest of the awards. The non-Best Picture awards go to the nominee with the most votes. Simple. But the Best Picture voting is a whole ‘nother thing.
Unlike the winners of the other categories which are determined by popular vote — i.e, a voter picks just one of the nominees and the Oscar goes to the that nominee with the most votes — the winner of Best Picture is arrived at by a more complicated system. The academy uses preferential voting, as it does to determine nominees in most other races, to determine the winner of Best Picture.
Here’s how preferential voting works:
Voters rank the Best Picture nominees. If one nominee garners more than 50% of the first place votes, it will win Best Picture.
If, as is more likely, no nominee reaches this threshold, the film with the fewest first place votes is eliminated, with its ballots being reapportioned to the second place choice.
Should no film cross the required 50% + one ballot threshold, the film with the fewest first place votes is again elminated, with its ballots being apportioned to the next choice still in play (i.e., if the second place choice is no longer in the running, then the ballot would be reapportioned to the third place choice and so on.)
This process of elimination and reapportion continues until one film reaches at least 50% + one ballots. That is the Best Picture winner.
Put more simply, if a film has one more than 50% of the vote, that film wins. If not, the bottom film is eliminated and those eliminated votes are recounted, going to the second choice on each ballot. Rinse and repeat.
Here are your nominees. Neil Patrick Harris will be hosting tonight. Should be a good show.
UPDATE: Fixed the voting description based on feedback from readers hdort and Irv and this link explaining the Instant Runnoff Voting (IRV) mechanism, also known as alternative vote (AV), transferable vote, ranked-choice voting, or preferential voting. Now the voting makes a lot more sense to me.
I think you got that wrong. A voter ranks the movie from 1 to n. If the voter’s number 1 movie is eliminated, the voter’s vote is now counted for his number 2 movie. And so on. It’s the voters 2nd choice, not the overall 2nd choice.
Are you getting this from the article, or do you have specific knowledge of the voting system? If the former, here’s why I disagree (and my knowledge is strictly based on what I am reading):
If, after a round of voting, no film passes the 50%+1 barrier, “the film with the fewest first place votes is eliminated, with its ballots being reapportioned to the second place choice.”
It doesn’t say, reapportioned to the voter’s second place choice. I read this as “the votes go to the film currently in 2nd place”. Could be wrong. Let me know if you have more specific knowledge. I am interested.
I don’t know why you think it’s crazy because it’s how national elections and similar are held in several countries.
You are wrong. This is just instant-runoff voting, which you can read about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
Ahhhh, now I see. That link really helped, Irv. Hdort, thanks for starting this thread. I’ll update the post. Please comment again if my update is still wrong.
The called-out explanation looks right to me, but the bit below it, including “If not, the bottom film is eliminated and those votes go to the second place film” and the bit about favouring the second place film are still incorrect or misleading. Thanks for the correction.
Haven’t fixed it yet. You’ll see the UPDATE: in the post when I do. Give me 5 minutes.
Looks good. “irv” is short for instant runoff voting, because I didn’t want to make a Disqus account. I always appreciate that this site lets you comment anyway.
I think Neil Patrick Harris should just pick the winners.
That would be entertaining…
I always like the Skandies as an Oscar alternative… great for finding really fantastic overlooked films . http://skandies.org
What is interesting is the potential effect on the voting. Let’s say Birdman and Boyhood (the consensus leaders) each get 40 percent. And let’s say a film like Whiplash finishes last. Then the advantage isn’t to the film that got the most second-place votes overall…but to the film that got the most second place votes from the specific set of voters that voted Whiplash first! Perhaps voters that loved Whiplash will also love the drum work in Birdman, and so Birdman gets the advantage. Or perhaps it’s Selma that finishes last and maybe those voters prefer Boyhood for some reason. What might decide Best Picture might be which film finishes last!
CGP Grey has a really great video explaining how Single Transferable Vote works. Makes it very clear how it works and why it’s a solid voting system.
http://youtu.be/l8XOZJkozfI