On Voting at the Hugo

The Hugo Award is using the instant runoff voting system (a variant of the Australian Ballot).  It may not rings a bell right now since we are used to the majority vote only.  But I think this system will be a subject of conversation next year when the Oscar will be awarded.  As may be heard on the news, the Academy expanded at least the “Best Picture Category” to ten nominees.  With that much nominees, a movie can win with only 11% of the votes (the nine other movies having 10% or less votes for them).

So the Academy has 5 500 members, 11% is 605 members if everybody vote.  As you can see the best movie may be chosen by a minority.  Just by looking at the Oscar ballot you can see where it fails to represent the best choice.  In each category, each member choose one and only one nominee.  The winner is the nominee with the most votes.  This system fails when no clear majority is given to a nominee.  When that situation happens, the winner is the one with the most votes but the difference with any other nominee may be very slim.

2009 Official Oscar Ballot

The Hugo Award voting system is a little more complex and was described, a the time of it’s introduction, as too complex and that nobody understand it.  Now we will cause an uproar if we try to change it.  Here how its works.  Every member place the nominees in it’s order of preference from 1 to 5.  It’s not mandatory to select 5 nominees, we can stop voting in a category when we fell that the nominees lefts are not worth the award.  An additional choice, “the no award choice”, may also be chosen if no nominee is fit for an Hugo.

Here is an example of the rundown of the 2009 Hugo vote.

In the novel category there is 5 nominees and the “No Award” extra nominee:

• The Graveyard Book
• Anathem
• Little Brother
• Saturn’s Children
• Zoe’s Tale
• No Award

First the first place in each vote is counted.  In that case :

No nominee has the majority on the first round.  The nominee with the least vote is eliminated and the second choice in these ballots will be used in the counting.  It will be the “No Award” nominee and the figures will not change much since the people voting for the “No Award” do not usually select a second choice.

Still no winner.  Next round.  “Zoe’s Tale” is eliminated and the 104 ballot for “Zoe’s Tale” will be moved to the next choice on the list.

Next round… But I think you get the idea now.  The last round was Between “The Graveyard Book” and “Anathem”.

There is 936 votes in that category.  The 477 votes for The Graveyard Book is more than than 50% and we have a winner.  An interesting side note, the Hugo also gives a second to fifth place but no award is given to them.  For the second place, all the votes for the first place are removed and we start the same procedure.  Looking at the votes for the first place, we may think that “Anathem” will win the second place.  It was not the case, it was “Little Brother”.  It happened that many vote for “The Graveyard Book” has “Little Bother” in second place making him a solid second place.  Also, no nominees may have enough votes to gain majority.  There will be no winner that year.

Oscar insight: Proportional voting system makes for wide-open nomination picks
The Hugo Award Voting System