I don't care whether they voted for a worthy recipient for the right or the wrong reasons. We can only speculate. I'm certainly not a fan of Ledger the human being (a father who did hard drugs), and he would have gotten no sympathy vote from me had I been voting, but I can't deny how brilliant...
Erm, *we the public* do not vote for the Oscars - nor should we ever IMO! Who cares if the general (US) public hasn't seen it yet?! The Academy Members have, and they vote. An Oscar should go to the Best (whether mainstream or independent), not the most popular, and certainly not the most...