2020 NASFiC Voting Opens

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Voting to select the site of the 2020 North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC) has started.

The Columbus for 2020 NASFiC bid is the only one on the ballot. They propose to hold the con August 20-23, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Convention Center, in Columbus, Ohio. Lisa Garrison is the bid chair, and the committee includes Dale Mazzola and Kim Williams.  

Members of SpikeCon, the 2019 NASFiC in Layton, Utah, are eligible to vote on the site of the 2020 NASFiC upon payment of a $35 Advance Supporting Membership (“Voting”) Fee.

Voting in advance closes June 29, 2019. SpikeCon/NASFiC 2019 must receive your ballot by that date. (Postmark date does not count.) Voting at the convention opens on the afternoon of Thursday, July 4, 2019 and closes on the evening of Friday, July 5, 2019.

The rules allow for write-in votes and votes for “None of the Above.”

For full information see Kevin Standlee’s post on the NASFiC website.

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6 thoughts on “2020 NASFiC Voting Opens”

  1. Something that I want to stress, because it is relatively rare that a NASFiC selects a NASFiC: only members of the 2019 NASFiC are eligible to vote on the 2020 NASFiC election. Members of the 2019 Worldcon are not eligible unless they also join the 2019 NASFiC as at least supporting members.

    The last time a NASFiC selected a NASFiC, there were a fair number of people who assumed that members of either NASFiC or Worldcon could vote, and who were surprised that people who were only members of Worldcon couldn’t vote. There were also people who assumed that the NASFiC voting would happen at Worldcon (because “that’s how it’s always been done”) and were caught out on voting.

    Potentially complicating some people’s understanding of the process this year is that the 2019 NASFiC is also the 2019 Westercon, and there will be a completely separate site selection election (for the 2021 Westercon) going on at the same time. Furthermore, there will be a Westercon Business Meeting (I’m presiding); however, the Westercon Business Meeting is not a WSFS function and has no jurisdiction over the NASFiC election. The Westercon Business Meeting will receive the results of Westercon site selection and deal with any irregular situations (like, for example, no eligible bid winning, as happened in 2011), but will have nothing to do with the NASFiC election.

    Speaking personally, I’m relieved that NASFiC happens before Worldcon this year. While I don’t expect an irregularity in the NASFiC election, there is one unlikely-but-technically-possible situation (a tie between eligible candidates and/or None of the Above) where there is no clear way to resolve the situation. At a Worldcon or Westercon, you’d refer the election to the Business Meeting. For NASFiC, if that happens, you still have the realistic (but complicated) option of punting the decision to the WSFS Business Meeting in Dublin six weeks later.

    Switching back to my Westercon Business Meeting hat, I am somewhat concerned about the lack of any filed bids for the 2021 Westercon. The filing deadline for the ballot is April 15. If nobody files after that, write-in bids can file by the end of on-site voting (July 5). If no eligible bid wins, it means the Westercon Business Meeting will get really exciting (again). At least if that does happen, those of us running the Meeting and Site Selection have experience with the situation.

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