How Academy members vote for Oscar winners

With final voting for the Oscars starting this Thursday I thought it might be helpful for me to repeat the explanation of how Academy members vote.

1. All members get to vote in all categories once the nominations have occured.
3. Rule 5 states that, “In the nominations voting, the marking and tabulation of all ballots shall be according to the preferential, weighted average, or reweighted range voting system. ” Sometimes called “the instant runoff system” this was explained thusly, “Instead of just marking an ‘X’ to indicate which one picture they believe to be the best, members shall indicate their second, third and further preferences (up to 5th place) as well. PricewaterhouseCoopers will then be able to establish the Best Picture recipient with the strongest support of a majority of our electorate.”

Variety provided this explanation a couple of years ago:

The PricewaterhouseCooper accountants begin by tallying all No. 1 choices. If a film earns more than 50% of the vote, it wins, but it’s doubtful that this happens often. So then PwC goes to No. 2 choices, and if needed, to No. 3, but accountants say it’s unlikely the counting will go much beyond that. If Film A earns the most No. 1 votes — say 30% — it seems like a favorite. But if Film B earned only 20% of the No. 1 votes, but was overwhelmingly popular in No. 2 votes, that could end up winning, especially if a lot of voters put Film A as their No. 4 or No. 9 choice, for example. In other words, a film may not win in terms of hard numbers, but in terms of consensus: Most voters agree that this is their favorite or at least ONE of their favorites.

THUS the film receiving the most 1st place votes will not necessarily get the final award. Example:

Movie A gets 6,700 under the weighted system;

1000 1st x 5    5000
100 2nd x 4  800
300 3rd x 3 900

Movie B gets less 1st place but ends up with 8,600:

700 1st x 5 3500
1200 2nd x 4    4800
100 3rd x 3  300

Movie B wins the Oscar