How Awards Voting Works: Who Votes for the Grammys, Oscars and Emmys

Every awards season, the same question comes up: who actually decides who wins? The answer differs for each of the three biggest entertainment awards — the Grammys, the Oscars and the Emmys — and none is a public vote. In each case, working professionals vote for their peers.

This guide explains who votes and how the voting works, using the official rules published by the three academies and checked on 9 November 2026.

The short answer

• The Grammys are voted on by voting members of the Recording Academy — working music creators such as performers, songwriters, producers and engineers — in two rounds: one that picks the nominees, and one that picks the winners.
• The Oscars are voted on by active and life members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In most categories, each craft branch nominates within its own field, and then all voting members vote on the winners. Best Picture is voted on by all members at both stages.
• The Emmys (the Primetime Emmys) are voted on by members of the Television Academy, organised into peer groups by profession. Members nominate within their own peer group, and the wider membership votes in the programme categories. In some categories, blue-ribbon panels decide the final nominees.

None of the three is decided by a fan vote, a streaming count, or a sales chart.

The Grammys: music’s peer vote

The Recording Academy describes the Grammy as the only music award in which nominees and winners are determined solely by creators themselves. The voters are the Academy’s voting members: active creative professionals such as performers, songwriters, producers and engineers. To become one, a person must show that music is their primary career, provide two recommendations and have verifiable credits.

How the Grammy process works

Step 1: Entries. Recordings are not automatically considered. Voting members and registered media companies submit recordings, music videos and films during the Online Entry Process. For the 69th Grammys, the entry window was 7 July to 21 August 2026, and eligible recordings had to be released between 31 August 2025 and 28 August 2026.

Step 2: Screening. The Academy’s Awards Department checks each entry for eligibility, and screening committees of more than 300 genre experts check that each recording is placed in the correct category. Screening is not a vote on quality; it decides whether an entry belongs on the ballot and in which category.

Step 3: First-round voting. First-round voting determines the nominees. Voting members may vote in up to ten categories across three genre fields, plus the six General Field categories: Record, Album and Song of the Year, Best New Artist, Producer of the Year (Non-Classical), and Songwriter of the Year (Non-Classical). For the 69th Grammys, first-round voting ran from 12 to 22 October 2026. Members can also opt in to Ballot Plus, an alternative to the standard 10/3 ballot that lets eligible members vote in extra categories matching their verified credits.

Step 4: Nominations. The nominees are announced after first-round voting — for the 69th Grammys, on 16 November 2026. In some craft categories, such as Songwriter of the Year (Non-Classical), nominations are decided by specialised craft committees rather than the wider first-round ballot.

Step 5: Final-round voting. After the nominations are announced, voting members vote again in the same categories to determine the winners. Ballots are tabulated by the independent accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP, and the results are kept secret until the ceremony.

A recording on the first ballot is not yet a nominee, and a nomination is not yet a win. Each stage is decided by the Academy’s voting members.

The Oscars: film’s branch system

The Oscars are run by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose rules state that voting is restricted to active and life Academy members. Membership is by invitation, through branches covering crafts such as acting, directing, writing, producing, cinematography and editing. The actors’ branch is the largest, and the Academy has almost 10,000 voting members, according to Britannica.

How Oscar voting works

Step 1: Eligibility. Films must meet the Academy’s eligibility rules for the awards year, including release dates and qualifying runs. The Academy publishes a Reminder List of eligible releases for each category.

Step 2: Nominations, mostly by branch. In most categories, nominations are voted on by the members of the matching branch: actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors, writers nominate writers, and so on. This is the peer-review heart of the Oscars.

Step 3: Best Picture is different. For Best Picture, all active and life members vote, ranking up to ten films in order of preference; the ten films with the most votes become the nominees. Best Picture is the only category with ten nominees; other categories have no more than five.

Step 4: Final voting by everyone. Once the nominees are announced, all voting members can vote for the winners in almost every category, whatever their branch. In most categories, the nominee with the most votes wins. Best Picture uses a preferential (ranked-choice) ballot again: voters rank all the nominees, and if no film gets more than half of the first-choice votes, the lowest-ranked film is eliminated and its voters’ next choices are counted, until one film passes half.

Step 5: Secret ballots, counted independently. Voting is by secret ballot, and completed ballots are tabulated by a firm of certified public accountants designated by the Academy’s president — the firm is PwC. The results are kept secret until the envelopes are opened live at the ceremony.

Ahead of the 98th Academy Awards, the Academy required members to watch all the nominees in a category before voting in it. The complete rules for each year are published on oscars.org, and the details can change from year to year.

The Emmys: television’s peer groups

The Primetime Emmy Awards are run by the Television Academy (formally the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences). Like the other two, they are peer-voted: the members of each craft nominate within their own field, and then the wider membership votes for the winners.

The Academy’s members are organised into peer groups by profession — performers, writers, directors, casting directors, cinematographers, editors, art directors, animation, documentary programming and television executives. All National Active members vote in all programme categories, excluding animated and documentary/nonfiction programmes.

How Emmy voting works

Step 1: Entries. Studios, networks and streamers submit their programmes, pay entry fees, and choose which categories to enter. A programme must have aired within the eligibility window — for the Primetime Emmys, generally 1 June to 31 May — and must have been seen in markets representing at least half of US television viewers.

Step 2: Nomination voting by peer group. Members vote for nominees in the categories attached to their peer group: performers largely nominate performers, writers nominate writers, and so on. Every member can vote in the nomination round for the major programme categories, such as Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Comedy Series.

Step 3: Blue-ribbon panels in some categories. Several high-profile categories add a second stage. For lead actor and lead actress in comedy and drama series, the top fifteen vote-getters move on to a second round, in which blue-ribbon panels screen the single episode chosen by each prospective nominee and select the final five. The same approach now applies to the outstanding drama and comedy series categories. For performing categories, directors and casting directors now also receive the full performers’ ballot, because the performers themselves felt they were well qualified to judge performances.

Step 4: Final voting. Once the nominees are announced, voting reopens. Members are expected to watch the submitted episodes before voting, and in most categories they vote for a single nominee rather than ranking them. The entry with the most votes wins — a winner does not need an outright majority.

Step 5: Independent counting. Ballots are tabulated by an independent accounting firm, and the results are kept sealed until they are announced on stage.

The Daytime Emmys, covering daytime programming including soap operas, news and documentaries, are run by a different body — the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) — not by the Television Academy.

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Frequently asked questions

Who votes for the Grammys?
Voting members of the Recording Academy — working music creators such as performers, songwriters, producers and engineers.

When are the 27th Annual Latin Grammy Awards?
Thursday, 12 November 2026, live on Univision from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Sources

• Recording Academy, “Awards Process” — https://www.grammy.com/awards-process/
• Recording Academy, “Grammy 101 | Frequently Asked Questions about the Grammy Awards” — https://www.grammy.com/awards/faq/
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, “98th Academy Awards Complete Rules” (PDF) — https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/2025-04/98th_aa_complete_rules.pdf
• Television Academy, “Emmy Voting Categories by Peer Group” — https://www.televisionacademy.com/members/hyphenate-voting
• Television Academy, “Board Tweaks Emmy Voting Process” — https://www.televisionacademy.com/features/news/board-tweaks-emmy-voting-process
• The Latin Recording Academy, “The Latin Recording Academy Announces 27th Annual Latin GRAMMY Awards Nominees” — https://www.latingrammy.com/en/news/the-latin-recording-academy-announces-27th-annual-latin-grammy-awards-nominees/
• Britannica, “How Oscar Voting Works” — https://www.britannica.com/video/Who-votes-for-the-Academy-Awards-Demystified/-359185

All facts, dates and rules above were checked against these sources on 9 November 2026. Awards rules change from year to year — always check the current rules on the academy’s official website for the ceremony in question. The exact date of the 69th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was not stated in the official sources checked on 9 November 2026 and is not given in this article.