If you’re going to post a shot of a 2011 Oscar ballot (as Gold Derby did earlier today), you need to have an image in focus. And if you’re going to re-post this shot, you need to sharpen and clarify it, which Awards Daily failed to do (left). Notice the improvement in HE’s version (right). It’s not rocket science.

The Oscar-ballot instructions read as follows:

“When you have reviewed the Reminder List, please write the title of your first choice on the first line of this ballot and list your alternate choices on the succeeding lines in order of your preference. Do not list the same title more than once; multiple votes for the same picture do not enhance its chances.

“The pictures receiving the highest number of votes shall become the nominees for final voting for the Best Picture award. There may not be more than ten nor fewer than five nominations; however, no picture shall be nominated that receives less than five percent of the total votes cast.

“The preferential system of tabulation is used in nominations voting. You are voting essentially for one achievement, and the preferential system insures that your vote will be cast — in order of your listed preferences — for the candidate for whom it can do the most good. (If, for example, the achievement on the top line of your ballot receives almost no support from other votes, you have not ‘wasted’ your vote. The system moves on and casts your vote for your second listed achievement, and so on.)

“You need not fill in all five lines. The more preferences you indicate, however, the greater the certainty that your ballot will influence the Best Picture nominees list.

“When you have marked this ballot, please return it to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in the enclosed, self-addressed GREEN envelope early enough to be received by them before the deadline, 5:00 pm [on] Friday, January 13, 2012.”