The 2020 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Fan Poll doesn’t officially end until January 10th, but Dave Matthews Band have already locked in their first place finish. Does that mean they will be inducted? Not necessarily, according to the Rock Hall’s rules.

The top five artists, as selected by the public, will comprise a “fans’ ballot” that will be tallied along with the other ballots to choose the 2020 inductees.

Note that no extra value is given to the fan poll’s first place artist versus the fifth place artist. Each will be counted equally. How much weight does the “fans’ ballot” carry? The Rock Hall says there are over 1000 members of the Voting Committee, so the fans’ ballot is theoretically worth just 0.1% of the overall vote. In actuality, the weight of the vote is worth a bit more because not all 1000+ ballots get returned. If you need to appear on at least 1/3 of the returned ballots to get into the top five (based on the results of our mock poll), and if only half the ballots get returned, you would need about 167 votes for induction. The fans’ ballot accounts for roughly 1.4% of that total. It might break a tie vote, but it can’t move the needle on its own.

So why is the Fan Vote perceived to be so important? Why would nominated artists often urge their fans to vote every day just to get that one extra vote? Well, it just so happens that since 2013, every winner of the fan poll has been inducted (Rush, KISS, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chicago, Journey, Bon Jovi, and Def Leppard). Assuming the Rock Hall is playing it straight with the votes, the correlation of the fans’ desires and the Voting Committee’s desires is just coincidental and not causal, but that hasn’t prevented people from thinking it is directly linked.

There is a good chance that this may be the first year in which those two voting blocks won’t see eye to eye. When the inductees are announced in mid-January, there are two possible outcomes:

1. Dave Matthews Band is a 2020 inductee: This scenario would reinforce the general perception that winning the fan poll guarantees an induction since every fan poll winner gets in. Popular artists with strong fan bases (e.g. Mötley Crüe, Phish, Jimmy Buffett, Iron Maiden) would see this as a path to induction.
2. Dave Matthews Band does not get inducted this year: This is where things get interesting. Fans of Dave Matthews Band who voted will feel like it was a waste of time and will become skeptical of the Rock Hall’s induction process (if they weren’t already). Artists may wake up to the realization that getting the fans involved is far less important than getting their friends with actual ballots to vote. The Rock Hall will likely try to defend the poll by pointing to any artists in the top five who did get inducted (e.g. Pat Benatar and the Doobie Brothers).

So how is this going to shake out? We’re guessing the Voting Committee is more in line with the voters in the FRL Fan Poll, where Dave Matthews Band is currently placed next to last (appearing on 15% of ballots), so they will fall short and the fan poll blowback can begin.