The years that Up and Toy Story 3 were nominated were the first and only two years when the BP category was expanded to ten. After those two years, various rule changes and qualification standards were set in place that has resulted in the floating 5-10 number of nominees (actually always 8 or 9 nominees as it turns out).
It's buried in the rules changes, but the minimum qualification percentages to become eligible for best picture were set at a level that "conveniently" is slightly larger than the animation branch of the academy. Within the animation world, this was quietly viewed as basically the academy specifically setting _that_ threshold so that animated films would _not_ be nominated every year.
And since an instant runoff ballot like best picture nominations is an extremely easy ballot to game within a small ghettoized subsection (animation) of a small community (the academy), the animation division could/would have guaranteed an animated film nominated in most years simply by a relatively small amount of people (who are all friends anyway) to bloc vote animated films as their 1 2 and 3 votes, when nominating.
in an instant run off, it would more or less guarantee that all the animation best picture nomination votes would accrue to an animated film and to nowhere else and would maximize the value of their votes, especially if live action doesn't have a strong bloc to work the game theory on.
***
There will probably be SIGNIFICANT changes to the oscars and probably rule changes to forestall future international films from being eligible for best picture because the numbers are in and this year is the all time lowest ratings in oscar history. Down 20% from last year and down 10% from the previous all time low (two years ago).
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... l-time-low
The academy has successfully made its membership more diverse and international since oscars so white, but if they want to stop the ratings dive they need to get more people into the academy that understand what comprises contemporary blockbusters. Let's take the fail of the VFX category this year as an example, because VFX is usually a proxy for blockbusters: The mediocre and wildly inconsistent de-aging of the Irishmen was nominated for visual effects over the far superior and better executed de-aging visual effects in Captain Marvel, for example. the same visual effects "expert committee" in the academy shortlisted CATS as one of the 10 best VFX films of the year, over far more deserving films that didn't make the shortlist (Spiderman is the one that comes to mind first). And then the academy actually picked 1917 for the oscar, but 1917 was some sky replacements/set extensions, a handful of digital+practical explosion rigs and stitching together the A+B sides of shots so they seem seamless (shot to be seamless of course, what a challenge!). compared to the flawless and staggering vfx of End Game, it's a joke how much institutional ignorance that category displayed this year (and that category is usually not too bad, but this year was kind of especially crappy across the board from shortlist to final award).
I'm not calling for a popular film award, but expanding the technical side of the academy by bringing more people into the academy who are actual contemporary experts in their fields (rather than relying on (mostly) long retired experts) and are making films today could go a long ways. Films like Fury Road and Black Panther getting the recognition they deserve should be the norm for the oscars, not the outlier. (of course the blockbusters have to be that good as well, which is very much not a given).