How Do You Get the Most Votes and Still Lose? (Besides with the Electoral College

I have to point out one of the strangest things about this year's nominations. It is very likely the that performance that received the most votes in the Best Actress category was not nominated. How you ask? To understand, you first have to know about two rules the Academy has - one that makes sense and one that doesn't. The first rule is that if a performance receives votes in both the lead and supporting categories (as there is no technical differentiation between them) all of the votes go into the category that received more votes. This way, there is a true representation of the amount of votes the performance got. This prevents a split vote that would leave a highly praised performance with no nomination. This makes sense, doesn't it?

The second rule is that one actor cannot be nominated in the same category twice. This is a stupid rule and it exists in no other category (directors and sound designers can compete against themselves.) This is why you will often see an actor who had two good performances in a year campaigning for one of them in the supporting category. This makes no sense, as an actor's work in one movie is totally separate from their work in another. It's ridiculous that they can be nominated for both if one is called a 'supporting performance' even though there is no definition of supporting versus lead.

So, in the case of this year, Kate Winslet had two stellar performances in The Reader and Revolutionary Road. While Revolutionary Road is obviously a lead, they have been campaigning her in the supporting category for The Reader so she could get recognized for both. But apparently a lot of people didn't buy it and voted for her in the lead category instead. Since she obviously received more votes in the lead category than in the supporting, they moved all of her votes into the lead category. Even if she received far more lead actress votes for Revolutionary Road, the combined total of her Reader votes would have been higher, thus making her ineligible to be nominated for Revolutionary Road. Totally ridiculous. So, that is how a performance can get the most votes in its category and still not be nominated.