After many decades of using the paper ballot, its time to modernize. It seems that the Oscars have decided to join the rest of today’s technology by using an electronic ballot system. This is going to be a great thing for the Oscars to make their voting system much more efficient and speedier, but is still causing a few issues.

It appears that if they do in fact switch over to the electronic system, it “could result in a wholesale foreshortening of the entire US awards season, which traditionally extends from the Golden Globes in early January to the Academy Awards in late February or early March,” claimed BBC News. This could be a problem for the over all season because it would make the events farther apart, and less of a season, but rather more of completely separate events. However, the change fortunately will have to wait another year.

This years ceremony has already happened, and “next year’s Oscars ceremony has been confirmed for 26 February, so any significant date change would not happen until 2013 at the earliest.” This means that we will just have to wait and see what kind of changes will occur. Of course, in the mean time I’m sure that there will be further press releases and information available before a change is decided on. This does not mean that the Oscar’s voting members will change either.

The current system plans for all 6,000 members to have their nomination ballots send to them on December 27th so that they will have enough time to make their decisions and be able to make their final votes as of February 1st. If the electronic system does go into effect in 2013, the voting system should bring the awards ceremony up by a whole month. This is great considering the scale at which the ballots need to be sent out. The voting members are located in several countries all over the world. This new electronic way of voting is going to make the voting system much more proficient than it is right now.

With “nearly 250 UK-based voting members missing the deadline after their ballot papers were lost in the post” in 2004, it makes sense to come up with a new system that will reduce the risk of incidents like that from happening. Also since there is only about a three week span between receiving their final ballots and their deadline, it makes sense to have a system that encourages a speedy process.

The only news from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), is that they have asked for voting members to provide a personal email to ensure a direct delivery of the ballots with no third parties that may alter the vote, or simple loose it. This is an exciting time for the Oscars, that could cause a few bumps along the way as they figure out a good system to keep things as close to the other awards as possible, but one that is for the better.

Stacie Stauff Smith Photography / Shutterstock.com

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About the author

Sarah Sherboneau

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