Who and how do you vote for the winners of the Oscar Awards?

These are the nominees for the Oscars 2022 6:48

(CNN Spanish)-- 

When taking the statuette at the Oscar Awards, the winners usually give speeches, some full of emotion or irony and, of course, of thanks.

In addition to saying how much they thank their filming partners, it almost never escapes them to thank the Academy, which is precisely the one that votes for the Oscar winners.

Perhaps most interesting is finding out who the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are and how they vote.

Here we tell you.

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Who are the members of the Academy?

The Academy is an institution that has its own governing body called the Board of Governors.

This board is made up of 17 branches that include actors, writers, film producers, costume designers, and all those who work in Hollywood filmmaking.

This select group —which in 2020 had 9,921 members— is the one that votes for the Oscar winners according to their area of ​​specialization.

According to its website, individuals cannot apply for membership, they must be "sponsored by two members of the Academy from the branch to which the candidate seeks admission."

Whereas, those who are nominated for the Academy Awards do not have to be sponsored as they are automatically considered for membership.

The Oscars are no longer seen #OscarsSoWhite 2:01

When the debate over racial representation at the Oscars surfaced under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite in 2015 and 2016, the spotlight was on who hands out the biggest awards in the industry.

According to an analysis by Lee and Low Books across branches of the academy, 97% of producers and writers were white, while 88% of actors were white.

Overall, 93% of academy voters were white and 76% were male in 2015.

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Faced with controversy, the Academy announced that it would double the number of women and members of minorities by 2020 to foster a more diverse environment.

In that year, the organization announced that it had reached the goal.

The Academy is now made up of "45% women, 36% underrepresented racial/ethnic communities, and 49% international from 68 countries," it said in a statement.

How are the winners voted?

The voting process consists of two phases: the first, the nomination of the Oscar candidates and, the second, the voting of the winners.

A few weeks after the list of nominees is announced, this year it came out in early February, the second phase begins in which all Academy members vote in any category.

In 22 of the 23 categories, the person with the most votes is the winner.

But when it comes to the coveted best picture award, Oscar voters have used a complex preferential voting system since 2009 in which they rank films from most favorite to least favorite, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

You can choose between five and ten nominees: this year, 10 films are up for grabs.

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If a movie gets more than 50% of the votes, it automatically wins.

Otherwise, the count proceeds in rounds: the film that received the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, and the votes awarded are allocated to the voters' second choice.

The elimination process continues until there is a film with more than 50% of the votes.

According to the Academy, after the final ballots are tabulated, only two PricewaterhouseCoopers partners know the results until the famous envelopes are opened onstage during the Oscars telecast.

With information from Lisa Respers France

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