It’s considered a huge privilege to be asked to vote in the Academy Awards nominations race. However, if you’re deemed ‘suitable enough’ to be given the chance, you may not want to hold onto it much longer, as it seems there’s been real trouble with the brand new, high-tech online voting system…
On 17th December 2012, members were able to start casting their votes online for the first time in Oscar history. You would think that this would be simple and easy to do, but SUPER SIZE ME director Morgan Spurlock thought otherwise. He took to Twitter to complain about difficulties in logging in, which then sent him into ‘lock down’ (sounds serious). He then stated that he would have to wait for a paper ballot to arrive via ‘snail mail’. At 46, Spurlock is one of the younger Academy members (the average age is 62), so although there are many older people using the Internet now, some may still find it a little difficult to navigate – especially if even the web-savvy are having trouble.
To conquer the problem, the Academy have given members an extra 24 hours to place their votes, meaning they have until Friday evening (4th January) to pick their winner. Due to this technical hitch, the Academy also expects there to be a smaller turnout than usual which could severely affect the results. We’ll have to wait until awards night to find out whether the online cockup has made as much impact as it seems.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
