Oscar nomination ballots in the mail

The march to Oscar night has begun. Here's the latest from the Academy:

2009 OSCAR NOMINATION BALLOTS MAILED TO 5,777 ACADEMY VOTERS

Beverly Hills, CA - Nomination ballots for the 82nd Academy Awards were mailed Monday to the 5,777 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Completed ballots must be returned to PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 p.m. on Saturday, January 23, 2010. Ballots received after the deadline will not be counted.

Nomination and final Awards 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 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.