So Who Votes For The Grammys Anyway? And Did You Know Ryan Seacrest Was Honorary Board Chair?

Doesn't it seem like every year there are a slew of various complaints about the nominees for the Grammy awards? I have often wondered who votes for the Grammys, so I put on my Inspector Reesha Gagdet trenchcoat, monocle and hat, and with magnifying glass in hand, I took to the Internets to find the clues to fit all the pieces of the puzzle of the Grammy nomination process. Little did I expect to find out that Ryan Seacrest has a part to play in all of this maddness! (Keep reading to find out what role Seacrest plays in the mystery!)

1. According to the voting process page of The Recording Academy, each year, Grammy members and record companies are given a deadline to submit entries for each category.
2. Next, each entry is screened by the board of directors to make sure each entry is valid and matches the correct category. (The board of directors is managed by a chair. This year, Ryan Seacrest serves as honorary chair.)
3. The board of directors then submits the list to the Grammy voting members**.
4. The voting members determine five finalists for each category.
5. Once the nominees have been narrowed down to five, the voting members place their votes to determine which candidate received the most votes to become the winner.
6. The votes get certified by some importing accounting firm (Typically this has been the firm of Deloitte.
7. The winners get announced at the annual Grammys telecast on a Sunday in February on the CBS television channel.
8. Finally, once winners are announced, there is either an immediate backlash or flurry of congratulations for Grammy winners and losers. Music fans speak out on Twitter and Facebook to vent their frustrations and congratulations for all the winners and the losers.

**The Grammys FAQ page explains what qualifies someone as a voting member:

"Recording Academy Voting Members are professionals with creative or technical credits on at least six commercially released tracks (or their equivalent). These may include vocalists, conductors, songwriters, composers, engineers, producers, instrumentalists, arrangers, art directors, album notes writers, narrators, and music video artists and technicians."