2018 Worldcon Site Selection Voting Opens

MidAmeriCon II has unveiled its Site Selection Voting page for the 2018 Worldcon and 2017 NASFiC. However, all you can do today is download a ballot and mail it in with a check. MACII’s token purchase system for buying Advance Supporting Memberships by credit card comes online June 1.

On the page is the documentation each bid was required to submit about its facilities and committee when it filed to appear on the ballot.

Rival groups are bidding to host the 2018 Worldcon in New Orleans and San Jose. Click to download the 2018 Worldcon Mail-In Ballot.

Bidders for San Juan, PR and Valley Forge, PA are vying to host the 2017 North American Science Fiction Convention. (NASFiC is held when the Worldcon for the year is outside North America). Here’s the link for the 2017 NASFiC Mail-in Ballot.

The deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots is Saturday, August 6. Site selection votes also can be cast at MidAmeriCon II until 6 p.m. CDT on Friday, August 19, 2016.

In order to vote in Site Selection, you must be an Attending or Supporting Member in MidAmeriCon II and pay the Advanced Supporting Membership fee for each election. This process also makes you a Supporting Member of the winning bid’s convention. Ballots and information about voting and paying the Advanced Supporting Membership fee will be distributed in a future progress report and will be available online.

MACII explained in a statement why electronic voting is unavailable, although it is an option under the rules:

While the WSFS Constitution now allows electronic Site Selection balloting, it also requires that the current Worldcon Committee and all bidding committees agree that electronic balloting will be allowed. The MidAmeriCon committee believes that there are several technical issues associated with electronic balloting which have not yet been solved, and therefore MidAmeriCon II is opting out of electronic Site Selection voting in 2016. The Site Selection Administrator and staff will, per the Constitution, be accepting only paper ballots either completed on site, mailed, or hand delivered, and will not accept ballots via any electronic means.

9 thoughts on “2018 Worldcon Site Selection Voting Opens

  1. $75 ($40 + $35) to vote in both Site Selections. It will be interesting to see how many vote in the NASFiC selection, given that it does not include Hugo voting privileges.

  2. Gah, I’m torn, but my other half started chanting Puerto Rico, so I guess I’m supposed to vote for NASFiC. I said we’d better go no matter who wins, if I’m paying to vote! Valley Forge, while very close to home, has their dates very close to Worldcon 75.

    I’m familiar with people on the San Jose bid committee and respect their con chops tremendously, but I’m more interested in visiting New Orleans. At least I thought; then I saw the Winchester “Mystery” House (what’s the mystery? a medium told her to go build it) is in San Jose, so maybe there’s more to do in San Jose than I thought. Again – I’m torn!

    Hmm, Wikipedia sez, of Nolacon, that there was “a continuous two-day-long party in Room 770 at the St. Charles Hotel that became legendary following the convention not only for its duration but for its high quality. Mike Glyer’s long-running newszine File 770, named in commemoration of this party, has won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine a number of times.” I had no idea that’s where the name came from (if true)!

  3. I’ve never been to Puerto Rico and this gives me a good excuse. So I think I’ll vote for that. Weird, I had no intention to go to NASFiC before.

    And I MISSED the Winchester Myster House last time I passed, so San Jose it is. Also: Mummies.

  4. MAC told me, on 2016-07-06, that online voting (for site selection) would be allowed if all bidders said “yes” to it. Assuming that’s the truth, what was the stance of San Jose, and of New Orleans. … did they both say “no”, and if not: which did?

    Snail mail voting is (a) more difficult, and (b) would seem to disenfranchise visually impaired voters, and voters without access to a printer.

  5. Stan Sieler: I don’t know the complete story, but some aspects have been discussed here before, for example, this quote by Kevin Standlee, who’s part of the San Jose in 2018 bid,

  6. Winchester Mystery House is pretty cool. Oddly my most striking memory is the dainty stair steps.

    You’ve also got a working replica of a Difference Engine at the computer museum in San Jose.

    I’ve no dog in the fight for either site but, if you have the time and means to travel, there is a tremendous amount of things to see and do in a three hour drive radius of San Jose. That ranges from Monterey to the south and to the north through San Francisco to Bodega Bay (where The Birds was filmed. You can eat at a decent restaurant which appeared in the film) and Fort Ross (an 18th century Russian trading fort). Particularly the drive up highway 1 north of San Francisco is one of the most gorgeous I’ve ever seen. There’s more to be done in that radius than you could do in any reasonable trip.

    I loved the Bay Area when we lived out that way! [/squee]

  7. I think we returned the Difference Engine to its owner, up in Seattle.

    But … if you’re interested in a tour of the Computer History Museum, I’d be glad to give you a personalized one. I’m a senior docent there. http://www.computerhistory.org

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