8th Dec 2011

All the things you wanted to know about the LUKAS but were too busy to ask. Here are the answers to the most popular queries

By amaranta

So, we are well into our second month of voting and the votes are steadily mounting up! It’s great to know that there are some very popular people out there, whose work in Latin culture has not gone unappreciated. Thanks to all of you for voting.

With all the activity, we’ve also had loads of enquiries, which I’ve been answering by email. So here are some answers to the most common queries, for those of you who thought…but were afraid (or too busy!) to ask. If I’ve missed something please do contact me via the contact us section.

Meanwhile, keep voting and see you in February at the Gala event; we are currently closing the deals on venue and will announce a date and place very soon.

Query 1: Popular voting system

We have put a lot of thought into the voting system and really tried to make it as fair as possible. We felt that decision by popular vote, as opposed to by a panel of selected judges of ‘experts’, was by far the fairest.

Everyone will have their opinion on the BEST candidate, and maybe not all will agree that the winning candidate is the best one, but the popularity of a nominee is a fairly good way of establishing its quality. We do trust the public, especially the Latino culture public - a pretty discerning lot - not to vote for nominees that are not worthy. It is generally a public with criteria; a public with an interest, certain knowledge and passion for what they are voting for. Awards given by a panel of judges would be a lot more problematic and would generate more controversy – how did we choose the panellists and so on. This system may not be perfect, not everyone will be pleased with the result, but like any democratic vote, it is the fairest one we have. Please do continue to give us feedback though.

Query 2: Participation of non-Latinos in the competition

We have had a few queries about whether non-Latinos can be nominated and if this is fair etc. Here is our thinking; just as we have been embraced by UK society, we welcome those who embrace our Latin American and Spanish cultures. Many nominees who are not Latino have spent years dedicating themselves to a particular Latin American, Spanish or Portuguese art, service etc, out of love and passion. It is both problematic to discriminate against an ethnicity, and also unnecesary.

On top of that, identity is an impossible thing to prove. Being Latino is as much a state of mind as it is about blood, land or nationality. There are many Latinos who don’t embrace their own cultures, just as there are non-Latinos who identify more with Latin American, Spanish or Portuguese culture than their own. Also in our globalised society nothing is black and white any more, I am Argentine brought up in the UK, and always identified myself with the Argentine side of me. My brother, with the same background, does not feel the same affinity. Who is more Latino of the two of us? So from whatever background you are from, everyone is welcome. It’s the passion and quality that counts.

Query 3: Multiple voting

As you know, people can vote as many times as they want, with a 24 hour break between each vote. For us this was a way to make the system fairer, so that a nominee with access to a smaller venue, less resources, less numbers, whether by choice or by circumstance, has a chance against their bigger competitors. If it was just to do with numbers of followers then the bigger, better financed nominees would be pretty much guaranteed to win. We wanted passion to count as much as size – and voting more than once is a way people can express how strongly they feel about a nominee.

Obviously the size of a nominees’ audience or reach is a big advantage, but this way it means volume it is not a definitive factor; their followers have believe in them. Of course, like anything it is open to abuse, as you’ll have some nominees who will pester family and friends into voting for them all the time, but again we feel it is self-regulating; how many friends and family would be crazy (or sad) to vote every single day for two months? And if a nominee did it for himself every day, it is unlikely to be a winning factor.

Query 4: Votes being visible

We decided to make the votes visible on the system because, in a world of much distrust about online/telephone voting, especially with vote rigging, we felt it was the best way to show the public how transparent this is. When you vote you can see it is added. There is no way we can change or abuse this. One person has said that it means that candidates check each others votes to see how much they have to vote to win. But this, we feel is better than not having the transparency at all. Please let us know how you feel about this. We receive no benefit from having the votes displayed so if enough people are concerned about it, we can take it down.