Want to Know How Oscar Voting Works? Participate in This Poll (Exclusive)
thewrap.comtake part in a poll featuring the last 10 Best Picture winners.Just as this year’s Oscar voters are doing with this year’s nominees beginning Thursday, the poll’s participants are asked to rank the 10 past winners in order of preference.
Then the ranked choice voting (RCV) system will be used to determine which of the films has the broadest across-the-board support, just as the Academy’s accounting firm of PwC will do with Oscar ballots.The 10 films are, in chronological order, “The Artist,” “Argo,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Spotlight,” “Moonlight,” “Birdman,” “The Shape of Water,” “Green Book,” “Parasite” and “Nomadland.”The poll is now open here.Early next week, we will reveal the results and explain in detail how the process worked to arrive at those results.The ranked-choice system has long been used in the nomination round of Oscar voting, but it was extended to the final Best Picture vote after the category expanded from five to 10 nominees in 2010.
The move was made to prevent a film from winning with only, say, 12-15% of the vote; rather than simply counting No. 1 votes, the system uses a voter’s rankings to determine which nominee has the most widespread support.
In order to prevail in a single-winner election under RCV, a film must receive more than 50% of the vote. But while voters are asked to list all the nominees in order of preference, the vote initially goes only to the film ranked first on each ballot.
Read more on thewrap.com