Mr Schröder was annoyed, in Nice, that President Jacques Chirac of France refused to give Germany even a symbolic extra vote in a "reweighted" voting system in the EU's Council of Ministers, though Germany's economy and population are at least a third bigger than France's.
Her Revolutionary Road performance probably received enough votes to be nominated too, but the Academy rules state you can only be nominated once in the same category; a single extra vote for The Reader would have knocked Revolutionary Road out of contention.
The prospect of winning a few extra votes for a candidate you support simply isn't worth the risk of jail time," says Beam.
The Liberal Democrats belatedly made an end to public sector pay restraint a "red line" for any negotiations on a renewed coalition, a move that may garner a few extra votes in their key marginals, but in most respects the cuts have been a dog that hasn't barked.
But whether because the ink was deficient or, as United Nations officials argued, incorrectly applied, many voters found they could erase it minutes after voting simply with water, and, if they had an extra card, vote again.
