The voting booth for the 2008 ENnie Awards is finally open. Each IP address can only vote once, so make sure you try to vote from home instead of from a public or shared computer.

The voting this year uses an “instant runoff” Borda method, something I first encountered in grad school while studying different electoral systems. In brief, if you think that multiple candidates in a category are worthy of winning, you rank them in order from most preferred to least preferred. If there are any that you do not like or that you are unfamiliar with, leave them blank. Then, when the votes are tallied, your most preferred candidate receives n votes (where n is the number of candidates you have ranked), your second choice gets n-1, and so on, while candidates that you left blank get zero. (If you only know or like one product in a category, don’t rank the rest … and you can leave an entire category blank if you wish.)

The votes are tallied, the candidate with the lowest score is dropped, then votes are tallied again, repeating this process until you have one winner with the highest score. Because of this drop-and-retally method, it is actually counterproductive to “vote strategically” by placing, say, your second choice at the bottom of the list to improve the odds for your first choice. All this does is increase the chances that your third choice (or worse) ultimately wins over either your first or second choice. In other words, Borda was pretty clever.

So, above all else, vote honestly. If you don’t know a particular product or don’t want a product to win, don’t rank it at all. If you do like a product, rank it honestly. It works out best for everyone that way.

Voting closes on Wednesday, August 6th, so go vote right away and encourage your fellow players to do the same (from separate computers). If you enjoy playing Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition, I’d appreciate your vote in each category in which we were nominated. Thanks in advance!