Monday was the first day that the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled its new electronic voting system for the Oscars, and today didn’t exactly go off without a hitch. I figured the big problem would be getting older voters (some are over 100) to warm up to using the world wide web. But the big problem today occurred when the system temporarily went on the fritz and voters couldn’t log in. I’m not sure if there was an avalanche of attempts to vote, but I’m told that the system wasn’t working for much of the day today, one frustrated Academy member told me. The member added that the support center, whose number was included with the ballot instructions, wasn’t sure when things would be back online.
I got an explanation on the temporary glitch in online voting from Michael Shamberg, the Django Unchained producer who’s a long time Academy member and who encountered some problems but came away satisfied that the new system will work. Said Shamberg: “I had a good experience with the online voting. Even though I had a technical problem, the Academy tech support called me hourly until it was fixed. There are multiple levels of security that are designed to keep it from being hacked and they got the bugs out right away.”
Full Article: Oscar 2012 Voting — Glitches On First Day Of Online Ballots.