Sasquan Sets New Hugo Voting Record

Sasquan logoSasquan received a record­ 5,950 valid ballots for the 2015 Hugo Awards, surpassing the mark of 3,587 votes set last year at LonCon 3.

Nearly all voters cast their ballots online – only 36 were mailed in.

Sasquan had the highest level of participation in the past decade with over 57% of eligible members voting.

Most of the votes were cast in the final week before the deadline, over 3,000. (Approximately 2,900 votes had been submitted as of July 24.)

The new vote total record is a 65% increase over LonCon’s record.

The Hugo Award winners will be announced Saturday, August 22 at a ceremony hosted by authors Tananarive Due and David Gerrold. The ceremony will be livestreamed free of charge at http://www.ustream.tv/hugoawards. There will also be a text stream available on the Hugo Awards webpage at http://www.thehugoawards.org.

Sasquan will release the final runoff vote counts and report the nominating votes through its website at the conclusion of the ceremony.

89 thoughts on “Sasquan Sets New Hugo Voting Record

  1. And we’ll see in 18 days who the electorate in that record number was…

  2. Good. Although it hasn’t been discussed much (I did see it talked about over on Chaos Horizon), even with instant runoff voting, someone trying to organize a bloc to put their thumb on the scale can still have an effect, especially in close votes. And there is someone obviously trying to do that this year. The more overall voters there are outside the bloc (and I am hopeful that is most of the voters), the less likely that is to work.

  3. I am hoping to see the voting tally turn out to be a Bambi vs. Godzilla matchup… with the Pups as Bambi.

  4. This is great news. And, sadly, a significantly better turnout than that for the 2014 election in the U.S.

  5. I’m very much in favor of a big turnout among the membership. Going to be fascinating finding out how we’uns voted. 🙂

  6. Rev. Bob, I’m envisioning more of a Monty Python’s Flying Puppies foot coming down, given the overblown nature of said Puppies.

  7. Okay, now those numbers make a lot more sense to me. I’m willing to buy that a substantial minority of the new supporting members never got past the amount of work necessary for a good-faith effort to vote. But the last time we saw a report, it looked like a large majority of the members weren’t voting, and that struck me as very odd – if you’re going to shell out forty bucks, that implies you’re willing to put forth at least some effort.

    In that context, a flood of last-minute votes seems unsurprising.

  8. In that context, a flood of last-minute votes seems unsurprising

    I’m surprised by the number of voters, but not by the last-week rush.

  9. The SP did well in generating interest. I myself bought a membership and voted. As to how many are SP or trufans I have no idea. I have to admit some of the reading was enjoyable and some not. I only no Awarded one category where there not anything worthwhile. I am not saying how I voted and I did not before they closed.I did not want to influence anyone. Really why would anyone be interested on how a single person votes?. I did change a few selection on 7/30/15 I look forward to the awards.I will not be there. Flying crosscountry is not in my budget.
    For those that are going I hope that everyone has good time.

  10. The numbers are high enough that no one can manipulate the vote with only 200. That so few nominate is really shameful and does lead to insular cliques. Hopefully that will change next year.

  11. I’m glad that people have voted, but I haven’t a clue which way it will go; I’m very much hoping that Sheila Gilbert will win the Hugo for editing long form, but it’s in the lap of the gods.

    As for the effort involved, I have spent all day attempting, unsuccessfully, to extract a Turkish visa via the net. The lady at the call centre helpfully explained that I need to open another email account to try all over again, and, just to make things really silly, there’s a public transport strike planned so I will need to be at the airport long before I had planned.

    I do hope everyone is having a better day than I am…

  12. The numbers are high enough that no one can manipulate the vote with only 200.

    I imagine it’s possible a bloc vote of 200 or so could turn second or even third place into a winner in the Best Novel category, where there appears going by online sentiment to be a tight race, and perhaps sway one or two other closely contested categories, possibly by making the difference between an award being given and No Award. But it’s certainly true a bloc of roughly that size can at best influence the result, not dictate it.

  13. Apparently, the Puppies have decided that since the Internet stopped paying much attention to them, that’s a sign of fear, and evidence that the SJWs have gone into radio silence mode while they cut backroom deals to make everything come out the CHORFy way.

  14. Kurt, On what basis do you say that? I have no idea if the SJW people are conspiring or not. It seems to me that most just share comments on websites like this one.
    I wish good luck to all the nominees who ever wins. Though I am really interested in the site selection. If it is in DC I can go in 2017.

  15. Apparently, the Puppies have decided that since the Internet stopped paying much attention to them, that’s a sign of fear

    Of course. Because no one could ever have other things to talk about. It is always all about the Puppies.

  16. I have no idea if the SJW people are conspiring or not.

    They certainly haven’t sent me a memo about the clandestine meet-ups.

    It seems to me that most just share comments on websites like this one.

    That would be the rational assumption, yeah.

    I really doubt that Kurt speaks for the puppies

    I am not the Puppy Lorax, that’s for sure!

  17. > “The numbers are high enough that no one can manipulate the vote with only 200.”

    Not at all true. Some categories attract far fewer voters than others. Even in the ones that attract many voters a close race is possible.

    Nonetheless, I hope you are right that it does not, even if I disagree that it cannot.

  18. Last year, if I remember right, there were about 1,500 more Hugo voters (not nominators) than there had been the year before. About 500 of them approved Puppy choices. This year there are another 2,400 more voters than last year if I’m doing the headmath right. If the proportions break the same as last year, 800 of *them* will vote Puppy. Assume the 500 Puppies from last year returned and you’d have 1,300 Puppies….and 4,600 nonPuppy voters.

    Of course maybe the wellsprings of fannish resistance were tapped out last year and the new 2,400 are all puppies. In that case we’d have 3,000 non-Puppy voters and about 2,900 Puppies.

    This is totally bluesky guessing, but I’m… not sure the Puppies can pull this one out. I think it will depend on just how disinterested the disinterested middle turns out to be. I guess we’ll find out when the Hugos are announced.

    We’ll also get to see the bases–their design is apparently kept secret until the awards are given. The artist who got the commission is kind of a friend of mine and I’m very curious about what he came up with.

  19. Cat wrote:

    We’ll also get to see the bases–their design is apparently kept secret until the awards are given.

    The Sasquan website says, “The winning base will be unveiled at the opening ceremony of Sasquan and will be on display throughout the run of the convention.” This matches recent practice, where the base design has been on display in the Exhibits section of the Worldcon, typically featured as part of the “history of the Hugos” piece of the Worldcon History project.

  20. My gut feeling is that a bit under a third of voters are core Puppy and a bit over a third are hardline anti-Puppy (including myself). I’m pretty confident that neither Puppy nominee will won Best Novel, and that No Award will won both Best Novella and Best Related Work. For the rest, it’s very difficult to predict. (Except Julie Dillon whose work everyone except me seems to like.)

  21. @mtroyd. Smugness, really? There are a variety of opinions and ideas here.

  22. I was a late voter, as I was travelling and hadn’t quite finished my reading.

  23. @Morris Keesan

    Oh, cool! I’m pleased to hear that I won’t have to wait as long as I thought to see the Hugo bases. Thanks.

    @RAH

    From what I’ve seen, the Pups will be a minority among the new voters. But my point of view could be heavily affected by the fact that I find the Pups enormously irritating, and avoid them where possible. So I’m trying to take that into account.

  24. “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.” – Pauline Kael

  25. I recommend everyone cuddle a happy puppy, as I am doing. It’s very soothing.

    The high voter participation is wonderful, and it will be fascinating to see both who won, and what the long list data shows.

  26. Lis, I’m favor of happy puppies. One of the fun things about my current apartment is that it’s on the ground floor, at one end of the building, with sidewalk and lawn right outside. People walk their dogs past, and I get the fun of watching many, many kinds of dog, without any of the hassles of taking care of them.

    My cat, of course, sits on the windowsill and condescends. 🙂

  27. @Bruce — Lots of the fun, none of the work!

    And yes, cats are very good at condescending. My cat, before she died, would condescend to the dogs from the top of the cat tree.

  28. I suppose it’s useless to speculate and all there is to do now is wait, but fwiw I’m a new voter. Despite following the brouhaha, I wasn’t going to vote since when I read sci-fi, it is normally somewhat old sci-fi (currently The Iron Dream, which is rather appropriate given the Puppies). But after Brad Torgersen left yet another dishonest comment at GRRM blog last week I bought a membership and voted, leaving the Puppies off the ballot but voting for No Award (though No Award was always below non-Puppy nominations). I would be surprised if I were the only one to do so. The Puppies don’t seem to have endeared themselves to anyone.

  29. Anyone who thinks that there are 2000 puppies is stupid.

    I’ll be surprised if their support rises any significant amount over the roughly 1,000 they were able to scrape together last year.

  30. Shao Ping, the Puppies have a blazing talent for making folk despise them. Sorry your first time voting for the Hugos meant you had to wade through a cubic buttload of puppy-drek.

    In a normal year, the Hugo process IS fun.

  31. We do keep hearing from people who claim to have been converted by the Puppies, and who knows, while some of them turn out to have been pro-Puppy all along and are just trying to game people, I’m sure there are some who actually were.

    But yeah, all that hatred spewed at liberals and “wrongSF,” for lack of a better term,* not to mention the accusations that women and minorities were getting awards not deserved by their talent, and yaddita yaddita, that’s bound to have rubbed a lot of readers the wrong way. If the SF audience leans liberal, as it seems to have historically, that’s an assault on the larger part of the audience.

    *the Puppies love to claim the non-Puppies are calling them “wrongfans” for having “wrongfun,” but as far as I can tell the non-Puppies have no issue with any fans liking any sort of SF; they’re just not giving Hugos to Brad’s Pals. It’s the Puppies who are furious that certain types of SF are “pink” or “poofy” or not-SF, so it seems like they’ve identified a large amount of stuff they consider “wrongfun,” and by extension, those readers who like it are “wrongfans.” But then, they have a serious projection problem…

  32. I feel the majority of puppies are just fans that self-identify as conservative and I have no problem with them voting or nominating what they personally feel is the best works of the year if they are WorldCon members – that is what we all should do.

    I like some MilSF fiction but I don’t think it does not win because of nefarious cabals or affirmative action votes. I do realize my tastes are not always in step with others; and some of what I like is frankly not award worthy !

    BT, LC, TB have not covered themselves with glory and frankly have annoyed me by organizing this wrecking ball that hit the WorldCon community this year.

  33. We do keep hearing from people who claim to have been converted by the Puppies, and who knows, while some of them turn out to have been pro-Puppy all along and are just trying to game people, I’m sure there are some who actually were.

    I think there are probably some people who have genuinely “converted” to the Puppy cause. I also think those people are few and far between. I think many more of the people who claim to be converts were Puppies all along, mostly because this was a tactic that GGers used – claiming to be either “neutrals” when they were already in the GG camp, or claiming they were once either neutral or opposed to GG and had seen the light. In almost all cases, a perusal of their internet history showed these claims to be pure fabrications.

    Given the intellectual similarity between the Puppy campaign and GG, I suspect that the same holds true for alleged “neutrals” or “converts”. Maybe they think like people who are religious and believe that claiming to be former atheists gives them some kind of credibility or something. I don’t know what the motivation for pretending to be people who “switched over” to the Puppy or GG side is, especially given that it is so transparently false in most cases. But they still do it. Like I said before, I think that the Puppies will get a small bump over their roughly 1,000 members they had last year, but I doubt it will be much of a bump.

  34. I don’t mind MilSF existing. I even like to read some, sometimes, though a little weapons porn goes a long way, in my opinion.

    I just don’t think “Best Friend Or Business Acquaintance Of Brad Torgersen” should be even one Hugo category let alone almost all of them. If that makes me a “Puppy-kicker” in Brad’s eyes, so be it.

  35. Zil:

    “Trufan”…?

    In normal usage, a hardcore or highly active con-going fan. (Longer definition here.)

    As used by the Puppies occasionally, one of many epithets for their nebulously defined enemies.

  36. I know that I was a last-minute voter because I hadn’t finished reading everything yet.

    This has really changed my reading habits. I normally buy paperbacks, which means I’m behind on everything and rely on Hugo nominators for future purchases. But now I’ve been scrambling to read this year’s nominees (while in the process of moving 800 miles) in time to vote, as well as potential nominees for next year so that I will have read enough to nominate next winter.

    I don’t know how people do it every year. But if I care enough about the results, I need to participate. Otherwise I can’t complain.

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