Oscars switch from FPTP to AV - will it change the result?

You know you're a real political geek when you care more about the voting method used to select the Oscars' best picture pick than you do about the films themselves. Yes, I am talking about myself.

Even so, I suggest that you read Hendrik Hertzberg's article on the topic in the New Yorker.

This year, several small films are up against the big-grossing behemoth Avatar, which under normal circumstances would mean that Avatar would win - Oscar best picture winners are usually the first- or second-highest grossing movies among those nominated.

However, for the first time the Academy have changed the voting system from what the Americans call Winner Takes All (known as First Past the Post in England).

Now, the votes will be cast using Alternative Vote (or Instant Runoff, as it's known in the US). This gives scope for voters to cast a 'heart' rather than 'head' vote as their top choice.

Could this change the outcome of the Best Picture selection? Hertzberg thinks it might:

“Avatar” is polarizing. So is James Cameron. He may have fattened the bank accounts of a sizable bloc of Academy members—some three thousand people drew “Avatar” paychecks—but that doesn’t mean that they all long to recrown him king of the world. (As he has admitted, his people skills aren’t the best.) These factors could push “Avatar” toward the bottom of many a ranked-choice ballot.

On the other hand, few people who have seen “The Hurt Locker”—a real Iraq War story, not a sci-fi allegory—actively dislike it, and many profoundly admire it. Its underlying ethos is that war is hell, but it does not demonize the soldiers it portrays, whose job is to defuse bombs, not drop them. Even Republicans (and there are a few in Hollywood) think it’s good. It will likely be the second or third preference of voters whose first choice is one of the other “small” films that have been nominated. And “The Hurt Locker” has special appeal with two important and overlapping constituencies. If it’s picked, its director, Kathryn Bigelow, will become the first woman to have directed a Best Picture winner. This would please women and men who like to see glass ceilings smashed, whether or not they were Hillary Clinton supporters. The other group is ex-wives, who are numerous in the movie colony. James Cameron has four. No. 3 is Kathryn Bigelow. She and her ex-husband are said to get along fine. Still, there’s such a thing as identity politics.

So, voting reform watchers, keep an eye on the Oscar podium - there might be a message there for a UK voting reform referendum.