Mumbai: Nomination ballots for the 81st Academy Awards were mailed to the 5,810 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Completed ballots will be returned to PricewaterhouseCoopers by 12 January, 2009. Ballots received after the deadline will not be counted.

Nomination and final award ballots are tabulated by PricewaterhouseCoopers to ensure that all aspects of the balloting process are conducted with fairness and accuracy.

Prior to mailing, the PricewaterhouseCoopers staff administers a thorough verification process to ensure that there are no duplicate ballots and that none are missing. In addition to being counted and sorted, the ballots are numbered to guarantee that each one is addressed to the appropriate Academy voter.

The 81st Academy Awards nominations will be announced on 22 January, 2009 in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.