by George Flynn

While I was working on the 1988 version of this article, Bruce Pelz asked me if I could compile a tabulation of site-selection voting figures. The two subjects seemed to go together well, so I decided to publish them together; this still seems appropriate. The total vote counts have already been included in Table 1, but these depend a lot on how many (and which) candidates are running. Of greater interest are the actual voting counts, to which this appendix is devoted. (It would of course be nice to have a compilation of the Hugo voting counts too, but that would take a fairly large volume.)

The present site-selection system, with both mail and at-convention balloting, has been in effect since 1972; before that the voting was done only at the Business Meetings (with a couple of exceptions for overseas cons). The last serious contest under the old system was in 1969 (at St. Louis), when Boston defeated Washington 169–119 for the 1971 Worldcon; as it happened, that was my first Business Meeting. (Note that the at-con voting continued to take place at the Business Meeting until the mid-’70s.)

As in the Hugo discussion, the years listed below indicate when the voting took place (with the voting sites in parentheses). Note that the 1971 through 1988 Worldcons were chosen two years in advance, and those since 1989 three years in advance. During the ’70s the numbers released were somewhat spotty, so I’ll start by discussing each year separately.

1972 (Los Angeles):

109 mail, 147 at-con ballots; total 256. At the last minute New York withdrew, and Washington was declared the unanimous winner; no voting counts were released.

1973 (Toronto):

Melbourne 330, Los Angeles 45; total 375. (If any separate mail and at-con figures were announced, I can’t find them. Here and for the next few years, I don’t have any numbers for “No Preference,” write-ins, etc., so the “totals” are probably low.)

1974 (Washington)
	1st ballot			2nd ballot
	mail	at-con	total
Kansas City	226	92	318	424
New Orleans	117	78	195	253
Columbus	43	89	132
	386	259	645	677

This was one of the only two times in the mail-ballot era when a second ballot has been required to determine the winner (1990 was the other one). I assume the extra 32 votes on the second ballot came from what I call “other” votes below.

1975 (Melbourne):

Orlando 298, New York 111, Washington 91, Philadelphia 28; total 528. I don’t have the mail/at-con breakdown, except that the great majority of votes were by mail.

1976 (Kansas City)
	mail	at-con	total
Phoenix	145	388	533
Los Angeles	100	360	460
	245	748	993

1977 (Miami Beach):

884 votes cast. Brighton overwhelmingly defeated New Orleans; vote made unanimous without revealing vote counts.

1978 (Phoenix):

Boston defeated Baltimore, but the breakdown wasn’t released; the “No Preference” votes were announced as for the hoax bid of Flushing. Here’s what was released:

	mail	at-con	total
Boston or Baltimore	379	584	963
“Flushing”	40	21	61
invalid	125	5	130
	544	610	1154

(The invalid ballots mostly lacked the voting fee — probably because the ballot neglected to mention that one was required. As far as I know, there haven’t been anywhere near as many invalid ballots in any later year.)

From 1979 on, complete voting counts have been released, and since 1980 the WSFS Constitution has required their publication. In the tables that follow, the totals for “No Preference,” “None of the Above,” write-ins, and (sometimes) void ballots have been combined into a single “other” line to save space; they’re usually negligible except when there’s an unopposed bid (or one with no effective opposition). No further commentary should be necessary.

1979 (Brighton)
	mail	at-con	total
Denver	275	178	453
Seattle	172	148	320
Los Angeles	85	45	130
other	16	1	17
	548	372	920

 

1980 (Boston)
Chicago	539	479	1018
Detroit	228	182	410
other	80	41	121
	847	702	1549

 

1981 (Denver)
Baltimore	432	484	916
Australia	266	257	523
Scandinavia	89	100	189
other	32	20	52
	819	861	1680

 

1982 (Chicago)
	mail	at-con	total
Los Angeles	406	508	914
other	95	110	205
	501	618	1119

 

1983 (Baltimore)
	mail	at-con	total
Melbourne	285	357	642
other	61	26	87
	346	383	729

 

1984 (Los Angeles)
	mail	at-con	total
Atlanta	298	491	749
Philadelphia	116	185	301
New York	96	146	242
other	10	26	36
	520	848	1368

 

1985 (Melbourne)
	mail	at-con	total
Brighton	145	262	407
Phoenix	88	14	102
other	8	10	18
	241	286	527

 

1986 (Atlanta), for 1988
	mail	at-con	total
New Orleans	269	643	912
“Bermuda Triangle”	189	236	425
Cincinnati	100	149	249
St. Louis	83	110	193
other	30	54	84
	671	1192	1863

 

1986 (Atlanta), for 1989
	mail	at-con	total
Boston	426	652	1078
other	83	115	198
	509	767	1276

 

1987 (Brighton)
	mail	at-con	total
The Hague	98	712	810
Los Angeles	128	402	530
other	6	27	33
	232	1141	1373

 

1988 (New Orleans)
	mail	at-con	total
Chicago	335	882	1217
Sydney	75	123	198
other	7	33	40
	417	1038	1455

 

1989 (Boston)
	mail	at-con	total
Orlando	355	1030	1385
Washington	37	75	112
other	44	95	139
	436	1200	1636

 

1990 (The Hague)
1st ballot
San Francisco	174	262		436
Hawaii (write-in)	67	232		299
Zagreb	30	145		175
Phoenix	50	97		147
No Preference	6	20		26
other	2	3		5
	329	739		1088
2nd ballot
	mail	at-con	total
San Francisco	175	264	439
Hawaii (write-in)	68	233	301
Zagreb	30	145	175
Phoenix	50	97	147
No Preference	6	20	26
3rd ballot
	mail	at-con	total
San Francisco	204	316	520
Hawaii (write-in)	82	242	324
Zagreb	35	158	193
No Preference	8	43	51

 

1991 (Chicago)
	mail	at-con	total
Winnipeg	332	680	1012
Louisville	339	618	957
other	42	75	117
	713	1373	2086

 

1992 (Orlando)
	mail	at-con	other	total
Glasgow	322	950	38	1310
Atlanta	248	867	32	1147
other	42	34	1	52
	587	1851	71		2509

(The “other” column comprised problem ballots that were counted separately; I presume they included both mail and at-con ballots.)

 

1993 (San Francisco)
	mail	at-con	total
Los Angeles	206	926	1132
other	25	125	150
	329	739	1088

 

1994 (Winnipeg)
	mail	at-con	total
San Antonio	200	715	915
St. Louis	78	388	466
other	18	40	58
	296	1143	1439

 

1995 (Glasgow)
	mail	at-con	total
Baltimore	296	516	812
Boston	103	221	324
Atlanta	91	103	194
Niagara Falls	63	126	189
other	17	18	35
	570	984	1554

 

1996 (Los Angeles)
	mail	at-con	total
Australia	260	548	808
Zagreb	27	131	158
other	32	66	98
	319	745	1064

 

1997 (San Antonio)
	mail	at-con	total
Chicago	304	989	1293
other	23	151	174
total	327	1140	1467

 

1998 (Baltimore)
	mail	at-con	total
Philadelphia	181	964	1145
Orlando	169	771	940
other	17	66	83
total	367	1801	2168

 

1999 (Melbourne)
	mail	at-con	total
San Jose	247	419	666
Roswell	51	69	120
other	9	25	34
	307	513	820

I note that every site-selection vote since 1981 (even in Australia) has had more at-con than mail ballots, and that the typical ratio seems to be getting more disproportionate in recent years. Is this due to an increasing distrust of the mails? (The highest at-con percentage was 83.10% in 1987, when there, ah, seems to have been a problem with the mail ballots; but 1998’s 83.07% was about as close as one can get.)

This suggests that my 1980 counts by date of receipt are no longer very relevant, but I might as well include the data anyway; the ballots went out on May 1, with a nominal mail-in deadline of Aug 15:

May 4–10	8
May 11–17	83
May 18–24	90
May 25–31	43
Jun 1–7	36
Jun 8–14	43
Jun 15–21	37
Jun 22–28	38
Jun 29–Jul 5	39
Jul 6–12	77
Jul 13–19	145
Jul 20–26	41
Jul 27–Aug 2	31
Aug 3–9	32
Aug 10–16	58
Aug 17–23	42
Aug 24–28	4
at convention	702

(1 mail ballot arrived after the con.) The major peak was of course at the Hugo/preregistration deadline.

For the at-con distribution of votes, we do have data from some recent years:

	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Total
1991	209	473	691	1373
1992	310	646	895	1851
1994	142	431	570	1143
1995	213	351	420	984
1996	82	203	460	745
1997	174	379	587	1140
1998	W: 342	Th: 488	F: 971	1801
1999	181	182	150	513

The first three averaged out pretty steadily to about 15% on Thursday, 36% on Friday, and 50% on Saturday. But in 1995 the breakdown was 22%, 36%, 43% (earlier voting because of the more central location?); while in 1996 (with a less central location) there was a shift in the opposite direction, giving 11%, 27%, 62%. Then 1997 had 15%, 33%, 51%; while 1998 (with the voting one day earlier) had 19%, 27%, 54%. The 1999 voting (with about 125 votes hand-carried) was completely atypical.

Addendum: NASFiC Site Selection