The prestigious Hugo awards for science fiction and fantasy writing has revealed that almost 400 votes – about 10% of all votes cast in this year’s awards – were fraudulently paid for to help one finalist win.
The Hugo administration subcommittee, which tallies the votes for the annual awards, issued a statement on Monday saying that they had determined that 377 votes had been cast by individuals with “obvious fake names and/or other disqualifying characteristics”.
These included voters with almost identical surnames, with just one letter changed and placed in alphabetical order, and some whose names were “translations of consecutive numbers”.
The voting pattern was “startlingly and obviously different” to anything the members of the current Hugo adminstration subcommittee had ever seen, and most of the votes favoured one finalist, who the subcommittee called “Finalist A”.
“We have no evidence that Finalist A was at all aware of the fraudulent votes being cast for them, let alone in any way responsible for the operation. We are therefore not identifying them,” the subcommittee said.
Only members of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) can nominate works for the Hugos and vote on finalists, which costs a minimum of £45 each year. Based on the Hugo administration subcommittee’s tally, paying for 377 memberships would have cost at least £16,965 (A$33,000, US$22,000).
The Hugo administration subcommittee said they received “a confidential report that at least one person had sponsored the purchase of WSFS memberships by large numbers of individuals, who were refunded the cost of membership after confirming that they had voted as the sponsor wished”.
The WSFS constitution states that “only natural persons” can vote and that “no person may cast more than one vote on any issue or more than one ballot in any election”.
After investigating, 377 of 3,813 votes were determined to have been cast fraudulently and had been omitted from the final tally, the Hugo administration subcommittee said.
“This decision is not one made lightly, but we are duty bound as the Hugo Administrators to protect the Hugo awards and to act against fraud,” they said.
While the finalist has not been disqualified, they have also not won their category without the invalid votes, the subcommittee added.
“We want to reassure 2024 Hugo voters that the ballots cast were counted fairly,” their statement said. “Most of all, we want to assure the winners of this year’s Hugos that they have won fair and square, without any arbitrary or unexplained exclusion of votes or nominees and without any possibility that their award had been gained through fraudulent means.”
US science fiction author John Scalzi, who is a Hugo finalist this year, called the statement “a welcome act of transparency”.
“To the person or persons going out of their way to try to screw around with this year’s Hugo: You just threw a whole lot of money into the trash, pal,” he wrote.
Prof Esther MacCallum-Stewart, who is chair of this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, where the Hugo winners are announced each year, said she was “dismayed” by the allegations.
“I … absolutely support their decision to preserve the integrity of the awards through the actions that they have taken. These awards are a cornerstone of our convention and represent the pinnacle of achievement in our community,” she said.
In February the Hugo awards made headlines when leaked emails suggested that several authors were excluded from last year’s shortlists after they were flagged as potentially sensitive in China, where last year’s World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, was held.
This year’s Worldcon will be held in Glasgow in August, with the Hugo winners announced at a ceremony on 11 August.
