Photo: Greg Harbaugh/AMPAS — Rick Rosas and Bradley Ottmanns of PricewaterhouseCoopers give the nomination ballots a final check before sending them off to be mailed. (12/28/09)
The Oscar race is officially on. Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences sent out 5,777 nomination ballots to its voting members. Before being carted off to the Beverly Hills post office, the ballots went through a meticulous verification process by staff members of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. They were counted, sorted, and “… numbered to guarantee that each one is addressed to the appropriate Academy voter,” according to the official press release.
These ballots are due back at PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 p.m. Saturday, January 23, 2010. The nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards will be announced at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, February 2, 2010. The famous golden Oscar statutes will be handed out to the winners at the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony Sunday, March 7, 2010 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
So how are the nomination ballots counted? The Wrap has a nice article on the rather complicated process, which reportedly uses something called the “preferential system.” No wonder they need an accounting firm to handle the ballot count. Very interesting reading.
