On Tuesday (Feb. 12), the motion picture academy turned on the website that allows its 7,902 members to cast their votes for the Oscars online. And it put paper ballots into the post at the end of last week for those members who requested to fill them in by hand. This marks the last year of that old-fashioned method of voting being used. Going forward, balloting will only be done electronically.
Either way, this year’s ballot covers all 24 competitive categories at the Academy Awards. All members are asked to rank the nine nominees for Best Picture and choose one nominee in each of the other 23 races (all of these have five contenders but for Makeup & Hairstyling which has three). While the Best Picture winner is chosen by a complicated counting method, the others are determined by a simple popular vote.
SEE 2019 Oscars: Who are the 7,902 voting members who decide the Academy Awards?
Eligible voters have until 5 p.m. PT on Tuesday, Feb. 19 to complete the process. The accountants will then tally the results and the winners will be revealed on the 91st annual Oscars, which takes place on Feb 24.
That is just 33 days from the announcement of the nominations on Jan. 22. Last year, the two dates were 40 days apart. In 2017, there were 35 days in between while there was a whopping gap of 45 days in 2016.
Final voting kicks off 22 days after the nominations were announced and runs for eight days as it did in 2017. In 2018, the break till final voting began was 28 days and it too ran eight days. In 2016, the period before final voting started was 29 days and balloting lasted for 12 days.
SEE 2019 Oscar nominations: Full list of Academy Awards nominees in all 24 categories
Be sure to make your Oscar predictions so that Hollywood insiders can see how their films and performers are faring in our odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before winners are announced on Feb. 24. And join in the fierce debate over the 2019 Oscars taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our movie forums. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
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