SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
"Will Best Picture go to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri or The Shape of Water?" (Photo: Craig Piersma/flickr/cc)
The Oscars Use a More Fair Voting System Than Most of America Does
Since 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has used ranked-choice voting to select winners in each category
Mar 04, 2018
The 90th Academy Awards brings with it anticipation from movie fans about who will come out on top.
Will Best Picture go to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri or The Shape of Water? Will comic genius Jordan Peele take home an Oscar on Sunday for his original screenplay for Get Out, or does that distinction belong to Kumail Nanjiani, who could be the first Pakistani-American to win in the category for co-writing The Big Sick with his wife Emily Gordon?
But to political science nerds--and really, anyone who wants to see a more fair and representative voting system--the system that produces these Oscar wins is just as interesting.
Since 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has used ranked-choice voting, or RCV, to select Oscar winners in each category.
Nearly 8,500 voters select the nominees and the winners at the award show. These voters are drawn from various sectors of film production--from actors to various levels of producers. After coming under fire for the relative homogeneity of the voting population, the Academy has boosted its membership in recent years, with an emphasis on inviting more women and ethnic minorities into its fold.
Unlike traditional first-past-the-post voting systems--in which the candidate with the biggest number of votes takes home the gold--under RCV, voters rank candidates on their ballot instead of voting for just one. If no one gets a majority of votes in the first round, next-preference votes are counted until a candidate gets most of the votes.
Read the full article, with possible updates, at The Intercept.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Zaid Jilani
Zaid Jilani is a journalist for The Intercept. He has previously worked as a reporter-blogger for ThinkProgress, United Republic, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Alternet.
The 90th Academy Awards brings with it anticipation from movie fans about who will come out on top.
Will Best Picture go to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri or The Shape of Water? Will comic genius Jordan Peele take home an Oscar on Sunday for his original screenplay for Get Out, or does that distinction belong to Kumail Nanjiani, who could be the first Pakistani-American to win in the category for co-writing The Big Sick with his wife Emily Gordon?
But to political science nerds--and really, anyone who wants to see a more fair and representative voting system--the system that produces these Oscar wins is just as interesting.
Since 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has used ranked-choice voting, or RCV, to select Oscar winners in each category.
Nearly 8,500 voters select the nominees and the winners at the award show. These voters are drawn from various sectors of film production--from actors to various levels of producers. After coming under fire for the relative homogeneity of the voting population, the Academy has boosted its membership in recent years, with an emphasis on inviting more women and ethnic minorities into its fold.
Unlike traditional first-past-the-post voting systems--in which the candidate with the biggest number of votes takes home the gold--under RCV, voters rank candidates on their ballot instead of voting for just one. If no one gets a majority of votes in the first round, next-preference votes are counted until a candidate gets most of the votes.
Read the full article, with possible updates, at The Intercept.
Zaid Jilani
Zaid Jilani is a journalist for The Intercept. He has previously worked as a reporter-blogger for ThinkProgress, United Republic, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Alternet.
The 90th Academy Awards brings with it anticipation from movie fans about who will come out on top.
Will Best Picture go to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri or The Shape of Water? Will comic genius Jordan Peele take home an Oscar on Sunday for his original screenplay for Get Out, or does that distinction belong to Kumail Nanjiani, who could be the first Pakistani-American to win in the category for co-writing The Big Sick with his wife Emily Gordon?
But to political science nerds--and really, anyone who wants to see a more fair and representative voting system--the system that produces these Oscar wins is just as interesting.
Since 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has used ranked-choice voting, or RCV, to select Oscar winners in each category.
Nearly 8,500 voters select the nominees and the winners at the award show. These voters are drawn from various sectors of film production--from actors to various levels of producers. After coming under fire for the relative homogeneity of the voting population, the Academy has boosted its membership in recent years, with an emphasis on inviting more women and ethnic minorities into its fold.
Unlike traditional first-past-the-post voting systems--in which the candidate with the biggest number of votes takes home the gold--under RCV, voters rank candidates on their ballot instead of voting for just one. If no one gets a majority of votes in the first round, next-preference votes are counted until a candidate gets most of the votes.
Read the full article, with possible updates, at The Intercept.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.