Thousands are set to cast ballots this week on two important races: the Iowa caucus and the Oscars, both of which rely on ranked-choice voting systems that are commonly misunderstood.
When deciding who will win best picture at this year’s Academy Awards, voters are asking to list their favorite movies in order of preference. In Iowa for the Democrats, if your candidate doesn’t hit a threshold — usually 15% in the precinct — you’re then asking to pick another candidate with more votes.
Here, Variety breaks down why the two processes are alike.
When it happens
Iowa Caucus: Monday, Feb. 3.
Oscars: Voting closes on Tuesday, Feb. 4.
Number of voters
Iowa Caucus: About 172,000 people participated in the 2016 Democratic contest.
Oscars: Roughly 9,000 people are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that decides the Oscars.
How to vote
Iowa Caucus: You must vote in person.
Oscars: You must fill out a paper or electronic ballot.
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How the process works
Iowa Caucus: On the Democratic side, voters arrive on Monday night at more than 1,600 precincts throughout the state of Iowa. They cast their votes by standing in a spot in the room that correlates with their candidate of choice. If your candidate has at least 15 percent of the votes in the room, your vote is locked. If not, you’re asked to switch your vote to another candidate who is doing better.
Oscars: For 23 of the 24 categories, the process is straightforward. Voters select their favorites from the names listed in best director, cinematographer, etc. But the top category has worked differently since 2010, when the Academy expanded the best picture race to include up to 10 films. In order to prevent a less popular movie from winning a fractured contest, the Oscars introduced a preferential ballot, meaning that voters rank the nominees — a list that this year includes “1917,” “Parasite,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “Marriage Story” and “The Irishman” — from favorite to least favorite.
How winners are determined
Iowa Caucus: For the first time, Iowa will release three different tallies from its Democratic caucus results. This might make your head spin, so read the following carefully. The initial vote will calculate where the candidates stand at the beginning of the night. The second number will indicate what happens after the realignment vote, when the less popular candidates are eliminated. And finally, there will be the delegate totals, which is awarded based on the final votes (using a formula that looks at Democratic turnout by county from the 2018 gubernatorial race). The candidate who receives the most delegates is the winner of the Iowa caucus.
Oscars: The easiest way to illustrate this is by an example. Let’s say in this year’s best picture race, “Ford v Ferrari” has the least number of votes. Then all those ballots are re-calculated depending on what those voters chose as their No. 2 favorite movie, and those numbers are redistributing to the remaining films. This process is repeated, with the least popular movies being eliminated one round at a time, until a movie has received 50 percent of the vote.
Takeaways
Since the Oscars have gone to preferential ballots, there’s been criticism that the new system has resulted in the Academy awarding “safer films.” In general, the system favors movies that are most generally well liked, as opposed to movies that are divisive.As for the Iowa caucus, “it makes more votes count and the candidate who emerges from the process shows a strength in the party,” says Rob Richie, the president of FairVote, a nonpartisan organization.