Beverly Hills, Calif. ? Oscar nomination ballots are in the mail.

They were sent Monday to 5,803 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Completed nomination ballots for the 76th Academy Awards must be returned to the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 p.m. Jan. 17. Any ballot received after the deadline is ineligible.

Oscar nominations will be announced Jan. 27. The Academy Awards will be presented Feb. 29.

In 2000, ballots for California academy members got lost in the mail. The academy had to invalidate them, send out new ones and extend the voting deadline by two days. The missing ballots eventually turned up at a postal facility in a Los Angeles suburb, where they had been mistakenly mixed in with bulk mail shipments.