by Nathaniel R

Parker Posey in "The Staircase", Natasha Rothwell in "The White Lotus", Sydney Sweeney in "Euphoria", and Sheryl Lee Ralph in "Abbott Elementary"

Have you ever actually gazed at those gargantuan Emmy ballots?  No matter how much TV you're watching you will know, looking at the options, that you won't be able to give every acclaimed performance a fair shake. Some shows you may not have even heard of. This is why Emmys definitely need rounds of voting or juries or some winnowing process to help voters (and by extension the public) to discover great work beyond just listing all the names from the shows they do watch each year, whether or not the actor had a good season. Imagine the Oscars if there weren't all those critics awards all over the place, multiple precursors, and top ten lists and the like pointing people to performances and the result was regulary 3-5 actors from 2-3 films taking up most of the 20 slots.

We know that that happens consistently at the Emmys. For example, just last year The Handmaid's Tale filled literally half the ballot in Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and three years back Game of Thrones made up  more than half of the nominated shortlist...