And the Winner Is...
Yesterday, hundreds of newspapers around the world announced that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will award its coveted Oscar for Best Picture by using a voting method commonly known as Instant Runoff Voting. This is probably the most attention that news outlets have paid to voting methodology since the topsy-turvy 2000 presidential election.
"Instead of just marking an ‘X' to indicate which one picture they believe to be the best, members will indicate their second, third and further preferences as well," Academy President Tom Sherak said. "PricewaterhouseCoopers will then be able to establish the Best Picture recipient with the strongest support of a majority of our electorate."
With ten nominees vying for Best Picture, the Academy wisely decided to avoid vote-splitting and chose a voting method that would pick a flick with majority support. The Academy's executive director, Bruce Davis, said they were concerned about "certain mathematical dangers" of a winner emerging with scant support from a crowded field. This is a concern that many political scientists share about the "top two" primary (often mistakenly referred to as an "open primary"), which will make its way to the ballot in California as a result of the state's dysfunctional legislative process.
The Academy already uses another form of ranked choice, or preferential, voting to select the Oscar nominees in a majority of its award categories. Voting geeks are having a field day with the expansion of ranked choice voting to the Academy's top prize.
The members of the Academy,
The members of the Academy, who had no direct say in the change, have very mixed feelings on the change which the Academy's executive director, Bruce Davis is calling "preferential" voting.
Hollywood Reacts:
http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/reaction-shots_5761
Craig Kennedy from Living in Cinema thinks it’ll lead to more spending on Oscar campaigns.
Sasha Stone at Awards Daily says it makes her head spin.
Nikki Finke naturally thinks it’ll distort the will of the voters, and is just another awful way in which the horrible AMPAS prez Tom Sherak is ruining the Oscars.
FilmSchoolRejects suspect that some ballots will have to be discarded because voters won’t fill them out correctly.
Gold Derby Forums at the Envelope, one poster speculated that it’ll mean animated pictures will start winning best picture. Another says it’ll cause some voters to get political and rank the strongest competitors at the bottom of their ballots.
Entertainment Weekly’s Dave Karger thinks Oscar campaigners will have to “canvass more broadly” to secure those number two and number three rankings.
As one veteran of the Oscar wars sums it up: “Right now there’s nothing but confusion, frankly.”
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