Those beckoned by Morningstar to rock the vote in the fund rater's annual top manager awards may be surprised to find out that votes from commoners don't count. Morningstar's stable of fund analysts choose who wins top manager awards, a Morningstar spokeswoman explained to MFWire.com.

A recent Morningstar article narrowing the top fixed income manager list confirmed that it is the analysts who decide: "[w]e'll review the nominees that our analysts will vote on here, and we'll announce the winner alongside the international- and domestic-stock victors in January."

If Morningstar's analysts are at all affected by popular opinion, then expect Bill Gross and the PIMCO team to take the fixed income manager prize: they were leading the online tally with 55.4 percent of the vote on Monday morning. 

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