Here's my understanding of the EPH (using the EPH divisors) algorithm, using what is hopefully a clearer terminology than the one used in the statues:
Every ballot is first tallied normally. This yields the "gross" of every nominee (which is exactly the same as total numbers as nominators). The gross for each nominee never changes.
Then each ballot generates a "net" for every nominee (this is "points" in the statutes, I believe). If the ballot has one (remaining) nominee in the category, the nominee gets 1 net, if it has two (remaining) nominees each nominee gets 0.5 net, then 0.33, then 0.25, and last 0.2 (with the full five nominees per ballot and category).
All the nets are added up for each nominee. The two nominees with the lowest net become eligible for elimination, and the one with the lowest gross is eliminated. In the case of a tie in gross, I believe the lowest net is then eliminated (but it might be that both are simply eliminated at once, unless that would put the list of nominees under the number of desired finalists).
Once a nominee has been eliminated, it is struck from all the ballots, and new (higher) nets are calculated, and back to the previous paragraph.
What happens with slates is that they tend to be high gross but low net. First, all the little-nominated works are eliminated, which increases the net of works with wide popular appeal. However, the net of the slated works stay pretty much constant. Then theoretically, a few works will find themselves with very high nets, and the slated works (with lower nets) find that they have to compete against each other. A few of them are likely to survive to the finalist list, but I don't view that as a major problem. Theoretically, in certain ties one might also find up to nine works on the final ballot (4 on top and a 5-way tie for the 5th place), but I don't view that as a major issue either.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2016-08-22 08:44 pm (UTC)Every ballot is first tallied normally. This yields the "gross" of every nominee (which is exactly the same as total numbers as nominators). The gross for each nominee never changes.
Then each ballot generates a "net" for every nominee (this is "points" in the statutes, I believe). If the ballot has one (remaining) nominee in the category, the nominee gets 1 net, if it has two (remaining) nominees each nominee gets 0.5 net, then 0.33, then 0.25, and last 0.2 (with the full five nominees per ballot and category).
All the nets are added up for each nominee. The two nominees with the lowest net become eligible for elimination, and the one with the lowest gross is eliminated. In the case of a tie in gross, I believe the lowest net is then eliminated (but it might be that both are simply eliminated at once, unless that would put the list of nominees under the number of desired finalists).
Once a nominee has been eliminated, it is struck from all the ballots, and new (higher) nets are calculated, and back to the previous paragraph.
What happens with slates is that they tend to be high gross but low net. First, all the little-nominated works are eliminated, which increases the net of works with wide popular appeal. However, the net of the slated works stay pretty much constant. Then theoretically, a few works will find themselves with very high nets, and the slated works (with lower nets) find that they have to compete against each other. A few of them are likely to survive to the finalist list, but I don't view that as a major problem. Theoretically, in certain ties one might also find up to nine works on the final ballot (4 on top and a 5-way tie for the 5th place), but I don't view that as a major issue either.