The winding road to snagging an Emmy

The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards will be broadcast at 7 p.m. Monday on NBC with Seth Meyers as host. Here's a quick rundown on how a prime-time Emmy is won.

  1. This year there are 17,000 voting members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences within 28 peer groups. They determine the nominees by submitting a program, performer or team in a category. There are typically more than 5,000 submissions.

  2. Once submissions are in, voting begins. All members may vote on the programs; peer groups vote on performers and individuals such as writers and directors.

  3. Those getting the most votes are the nominees and these go to judging panels consisting of academy members carefully selected by the Awards Committee to avoid conflicts of interest. Panels have no maximum membership size.

Performers and individuals submit their best work for the season; programs submit a predetermined number of episodes chosen by the show's team.

  1. Panelists view the screeners at home, mark their ballots and submit them to Ernst & Young accountants.

  2. A machine tallies the ballots and accountants hand-check them.

  3. The winners' names are printed on cards, placed in envelopes, loaded into locked briefcases and delivered to the Nokia Theatre live for the show.

-- Michael Storey

Style on 08/19/2014

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