Splitting the vote

[thestatisticianandi]

Posted: 6/7/15 at 6:15pm

A couple of days ago, Broadway.com put out a video, "Predicting the 2015 Tony Award Races with the Broadway.com Editorial Staff," and the following comment stood out to me in particular about the race for Featured Actress in a Musical:

"There are three Fun Home actresses in this category. Emily Skeggs is the third. That could split the vote. I’m just going to pretend like I know how to do statistics, which I don’t. So if that splits the vote, I think Ruthie Ann Miles from the King and I has a really good shot."

This is something I've heard over and over about the race tonight here on BWW and beyond...and as someone who does know a little about statistics, I decided to look into the issue historically. I put together my thoughts on my blog that's focused on looking at theatre from a statistical standpoint: 

https://thestatisticianandi.wordpress.com

Do you guys think that the vote will be split tonight? 

Happy tony-watching!

[mattporter17]

Posted: 6/7/15 at 6:22pm

I think Judy Kuhn is a lock for this award. Or Sydney Lucas. Both give stellar performances.

[n2nbaby]

Posted: 6/7/15 at 7:18pm

One person can't be a lock to win if you can say "or Sydney Lucas."

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/7/15 at 7:20pm

Exactly. A lock but someone else has an extra key

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 12:42am

The vote is always "split" by as many actors as are nominated in a given category.  Voters don't go in thinking, "Gosh, I'd love to vote for one of the Fun Home gals but I just can't decide which one so I'll vote for Miles."  They vote for the performance they most admired.

Updated On: 6/8/15 at 12:42 AM

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 1:25am

"The vote is always "split" by as many actors as are nominated in a given category.  Voters don't go in thinking, "Gosh, I'd love to vote for one of the Fun Hame gals but I just can't decide which one so I'll vote for Miles."  They vote for the performance they most admired."

 No, 60% of them say, "Gosh, I'd love to vote for one of the Fun Home gals." 40% say, "I'm gonna vote for Miles." The problem is the vote for the Fun Home girls gets split. 30% vote for girl A and 30%vote for girl B and so Miles wins with 40%. That is how a vote gets split.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 1:34am

"Gosh, I'd love to vote for one of the Fun Hame gals but I just can't decide which one so I'll vote for Miles."

That's not how you think three actors in the same category cancel each other out, is it?

Oh I see jimmy curry gave you some remedials.

As a feminist I would remind you that girls today prefer the term "broads".

 

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 1:41am

The voters I know (claim to ) vote for the performances they most admired, whatever the production.  That's all I'm saying.

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 1:52am

Right, so the vote was split, and miles won. that's all everybody is saying, including you.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 1:54am

Don't question the voters he claims to know!

Updated On: 6/8/15 at 01:54 AM

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 1:55am

^ Yep, it was split among all the nominees and Miles won, and I think deservedly.

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 1:59am

We don't know if there split hurt the Fun Home nominees unless we know for sure that those who voted for Kuhn would have voted for Lucas/Skeggs had Kuhn not been nominated and so on.

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 2:01am

"^ Yep, it was split among all the nominees and Miles won, and I think deservedly."

 I don't think anyone is arguing that she didn't deserve to win, they are just explaining how a vote gets split and leads to giving one actor the advantage of having more votes over other actresses that did not manage to get enough votes. You seemed confused as to how it worked and now it has been explained. 

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 2:02am

He still seems kinda confused. 

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 2:13am

As I said, I don't believe in the "split the votes" theory, not that I don't understand the concept.  For instance, if most voters thought Kuhn was the most deserving nominee, she would have won despite two other actors from her show being in the same category.  But it seems most voters went with Miles, pure and simple.

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 2:17am

"As I said, I don't believe in the "split the votes" theory, not that I don't understand the concept.  For instance, if most voters thought Kuhn was the most deserving nominee, she would have won despite two other actors from her show being in the same category.  But it seems most voters went with Miles, pure and simple."

 I'm sorry, you still come off as not understanding, but that's OK. I'll just leave it alone now. Don't worry about it. Maybe I'm just not explaining it very well.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 3:43am

So is it kind of like Sophie Okenedo and Anika Nani Rose splitting the vote for "A Raisin In the Sun" last year?  Oh, wait.  Okenedo won so I guess it's not like that.

[delongpre]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 11:00am

Jimmycurry explains it correctly. No matter what people might tell you, they walk in with a favorite show and decide to vote for someone from that show.

Jimmy's math was perfect. That's what I believe happened. In this instance, it would have been better to only have 1 or 2 nominations from the show.

I commented on this exact topic in another thread.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 11:33am

Wilmington, are you a young child?

[tazber]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 11:40am

Isn't this entire thread kind of pointless since no one actually knows who got what percentage of the vote?

I know they're always trying to get the Academy to release the voting stats, but they never will (and they shouldn't anyway).

So unless we canvass all 700 voters or see the stats it's all conjecture.

For all we know Miles could have won 650 votes.

 

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 11:41am

Wilmingtom is definitely still lost on how "splitting the vote" actually works... 

[bdn223]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 11:50am

Usually people over use the splitting the vote argument when it comes to awards because there is often one performance/role that truly stands out, even when multiple nominees in a category are from the same show. It more often occurs when their is no clear front runner, and it is a three way race, two of which come from teh same production. This year's Supporting Actress in a Musical category though, is the perfect example of the concept of splitting the vote. Although in most years people just 

With the Nominees being:

Victoria Clark from Gigi

Ruthie Ann Miles from The King and I

and

Emily Skeggs

Judy Kuhn

Sydney Lucas

all from Fun Home.

As another commenter previously stated most voters do go in knowing the show their ballot is going to lean towards, unless their is a true stand out that everyone acknowledges, for example Patti LuPone winning over Kelli O'Hara, despite South Pacific's sweep of essentially every technical category. Voters clearly favored South Pacific over Gypsy, but LuPone was the clear favorite.

Although no one can say for sure, but as a previous voter said it looks like Fun Home was the clear favorite musical of the night winning the most awards with 5 wins in the 10 unique categories the show was nominated. So lets say 5 in 10 voters' ballots showed a preference toward Fun Home. The King and I on the other hand won 4 of the 9 categories in which it was nominated, so lets say that it was 4 in 9 voter's ballots show a preference for The King and I.  This leaves only 1/45th of the vote unaccounted for which we will just give to Victoria Clark/Gigi fans. Therefore that 50% of voter's ballots that preferred Fun Home would be split among-st their three nominees.  There was no clear favorite among their nominees, as many believed either Judy Kuhn or Sydney Lucas we both equally deserving, and Emily Skeggs was rewarded by being nominated. Even giving Skeggs 0% of the vote and playing the likely 65-35 split between Kuhn and Lucas, which could have gone either way means that the Kuhn and Lucas would only receive 32.5% and 18.5% percent of the vote compared to Miles 44.4% based on Ballot preference. Even if their 60% of ballots showed a preference for Fun Home which may have been likely considering their were 3 nominees in the category, that would mean the top nominee from Fun Home would receive only 39% of the vote compared to The King and I's 40% and that is with Skeggs receiving 0% of the vote which is not likely.

This is not to say Ruthie Ann Miles did not deserve the award, she gave a wonderful performance. It was a three way race between her, Kuhn, and Lucas. Fortunately for her the base of voters who preferred The King and I was solidly behind her, unlike her competition of Kuhn and Lucas, whose base of voters was split between them. 

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 6/8/15 at 11:57am

Yes. Thanks for that. But those numbers and a detailed explanation was already provided from jimmycurry with more basic verbiage and less text, which was an attempt to make the concept much more accessible to those who do not -- or refuse to -- understand (and accept) it.