2024 HUGOADMINISTRATORS’REPORT
WHY CHOOSE US?

GLASGOW 2024
A WORLDCON FOR OUR FUTURES

2024 Hugo Administrators’ Report
The below report gives an account of the decisions made by the 2024 Hugo Subcommittee about theadministration of the 2024 Hugo, Lodestar and Astounding Awards, consistent with the commitment
to transparency made by Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures in February 2024. It is a public
document.
Please direct any questions arising from this report to hugo-admin@glasgow2024.org.
Membership of the 2024 Hugo Subcommittee
The Committee of Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures approved the following resolution on
20 November 2022:
Per section 3.13 of the WSFS Constitution, the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon Committee
completely and irrevocably delegates its authority to administer the 2024 Hugo, Lodestar,and Astounding Awards to a Hugo Subcommittee consisting of Hugo Administrator Kat
Jones, Deputy Hugo Administrator Cassidy, WSFS Division Head Nicholas Whyte, and WSFS
Deputy Division Head Kathryn Duval. The members of the Hugo Subcommittee will therefore
be ineligible for the 2024 Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Awards. Kat Jones may add to or
modify the Hugo Subcommittee at her discretion without having to return to the Glasgow
2024 Worldcon Committee for approval.
Laura Martins was added to the Hugo Subcommittee in January 2024, and the printed nominations
ballot therefore specified her along with the four names specified in November 2022 as ineligible for
the Hugos.
Kat Jones resigned as Hugo Administrator and from the Hugo Subcommittee on 15 February 2024,
and Nicholas Whyte took over her responsibilities on 24 February, including the power to change theSubcommittee’s membership. (In fact, no subsequent change to the Subcommittee’s membershipwas made.) We determined that Kat Jones remained ineligible for the 2024 Hugos (in the event
neither she nor any of the continuing Subcommittee members received any nomination votes).
Technology
We utilised several different technology solutions. Access to Hugo voting via the convention web
interface was designed by STAXO, a commercial company. The front end of nomination voting andthe front and back end of final ballot voting used the NomNom system, newly designed for Glasgow
2024 by Chris Rose. The back end of nominations used the Kansa system designed for Worldcon 75
in 2017 by Eemeli Aro, updated by David Matthewman. We understand that Kansa is now on its lastlegs, and that Chris Rose is designing an extension to NomNom which will also manage the back endof the nominations tally in future years.
We are enormously grateful to Chris Rose and David Matthewman for the time and resources thatthey invested in the 2024 Hugos.

Due to software problems, we had to pause Hugo nominations from 28 January to 6 February. This
straddled the 31 January date for Glasgow members to acquire nominating rights. We received aquery asking if we would extend the membership cutoff period to take account of the delay.
However, the 31 January date is set in the Constitution by Section 3.7.1 and we cannot change it.
Eligibility research
We received a query as to whether the members of the Hugo Research Team were eligible for the
Hugos. Like others in the wider Hugo team, they were not members of the Hugo Subcommittee, andtherefore were not disqualified by Section 3.13 of the Constitution.
We are very grateful to the members of the Hugo research team for their work. Their responsibilities
were:
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Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer - all non-Chinese nominees except in the Best Game orInteractive Experience category
Alissa Wales - all non-Chinese nominees except in the Best Fanzine and Best Game orInteractive Experience category
Fergal Whyte - the Best Game or Interactive Experience category
Arthur Liu - all Chinese nominees except in the Best Fan Writer and Best Fanzine categories
Regina Kanyu Wang - Chinese nominees in the Best Fan Writer and Best Fanzine categories.

Research began in early February. Non-Chinese language researchers were given alphabetizedlists of the top twelve nominees in each category, as voting then stood, as long as they had atleast 60% of the votes held by the currently sixth-placed nominee. These lists were updated as
votes came in.
There were fewer Chinese nominees, and we simply flagged all of them to the relevant
researchers as they were nominated.
Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer worked together, but otherwise the researchers worked
independently and each reported directly to the subcommittee.
Arthur Liu and Regina Kanyu Wang were members of one of the editorial teams that qualified for the
final ballot in the Best Fanzine category; but neither was responsible for reviewing the eligibility of
non-Chinese nominees in that category.

Eligibility issues that were flagged by the researchers were referred to the Subcommittee, anddiscussed and decided by the Subcommittee alone. In several cases, including the three cases
where nominees were disqualified, we were also able to get the views of the relevant creators.
We in turn referred one eligibility issue in the Astounding Award (which is not part of the WSFS
Constitution) to Dell Magazines, who duly ruled on it.

Invalidation of votes
Section 6.2: Natural Persons. In all matters arising under this Constitution, only natural persons may
introduce business, nominate, or vote, except as specifically provided otherwise in this Constitution.
No person may cast more than one vote on any issue or more than one ballot in any election. This
shall not be interpreted to prohibit delivery of ballots cast by other eligible voters.
It is clear from the above that the constitution empowers the Administrators to reject ballots if there
is strong evidence that they have been cast additionally by a person who has already voted, or thatthe voter is not a ‘natural person’. This is not the same as a ‘slate’ where different voters agree toalign their votes, and which is considered (correctly) to be allowed by the Constitution.
We are aware of two previous occasions when it became known to the public that multiple Hugo
nomination voting by or on behalf of a single individual had taken place, the well-known cases of1960 and 1989. The administrators in 1960 decided to simply reject the dubious votes; in 1989 it was
decided to count the ballots both with and also without the dubious votes, and to qualify all of the
finalists who would have been on the ballot either way, so that there was an extra finalist in theaffected categories. In the event, the relevant 1989 finalists withdrew from the ballot in two of thethree categories in which they had been nominated, and lost badly in the third.
In our view the approach taken in 1960 is closer to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, bothas it was then and as it is today. We believe that finalists should not appear on the ballot as a resultof illegally cast votes. The approach taken in 1989 would also be much more complex to apply now
that EPH is used to determine the finalists.
We have no knowledge of what may or may not have happened in this regard in 2023, beyond the(frankly confusing) public reports, but we are also aware of other cases in other years when
Administrators simply disqualified votes on the grounds that they were clearly not cast by natural
persons, or were cast by a single person using multiple memberships, in violation of what is now
Section 6.2. In those cases nothing was made public at the time, and we will not say any more about
them either.
At the nominations stage in 2024, we investigated several cases where at first sight voting patterns
warranted a closer look, but we did not in the end find convincing evidence that a significant numberof nominating votes had been cast in breach of Section 6.2, so no nomination votes were rejected.
However, when it came to the final ballot votes, it became clear from early June that a pattern ofsuspicious votes among newly purchased memberships was emerging, all of which supported aparticular finalist, who we will call Finalist A. The evidence available to us indicates very strongly that
Finalist A was completely unaware of this campaign, and bears absolutely no responsibility for it.
As we stated on 23 July, much of this peculiar voting behaviour came from voters who clearly had
fake names and/or other disqualifying characteristics, strongly indicating that the vote was not castin good faith. The fake names included, for instance, a run of voters whose second names wereidentical except that the first letter was changed, in alphabetical order; and a run of voters whosenames were translations of consecutive numbers.
Additionally, we received a report from a reliable and confidential source that at least one person
had sponsored the purchase of WSFS memberships by large numbers of individuals, who were thenrefunded the cost of membership by that sponsor, after confirming that they had voted as thesponsor wished. This was a sufficient and satisfactory explanation for the suspicious pattern ofvoting behaviour that we had observed.
There were also a number of voters who disputed their credit card charges for membership, all ofwhom had in fact voted for Finalist A. We refunded their memberships and also disqualified theirvotes. If these voters were also compensated for the cost of their memberships by the sponsor of
the fraudulent voting scheme, they will have come out with a financial profit. We did not refund anyof the other questionable memberships.
In total, we disqualified 377 votes which were clearly part of the fraudulent voting scheme insupport of Finalist A. We believe that many more votes may have been part of the scheme.
Removing the 377 that were clearly fraudulent prevented Finalist A from winning the Hugo Award intheir category. (It did not change the winner in any other category.) Again, we do not believe that
Finalist A was in any way aware of what was happening.
After internal reflection, we have decided not to describe further details of how such dubious votes
have been or could be detected, and we request that commentators be circumspect in any suchdiscussion. Any exposition of the technical details will incentivise bad actors to try and find new waysof evading detection. Our standard of proof is that it is pretty clear when you see it (as it was in 1960
and 1989).
Translation
We acknowledge with gratitude here the work of the translators who made Hugo finalist material
available to readers beyond the original language. Alex Woodend and Emily Jin’s translations into
English of Chinese works were in fact the texts nominated for the final ballot. Geng Hui, Xueting C.
Ni, Dauvit Horsbroch, Gao Qipeng, Emily Jin and an anonymous individual also translated finalist
materials for the Hugo Voter Packet.
Given the very large number of WSFS members of Chengdu Worldcon, all of whom had the right tonominate for the 2024 Hugos, we had all the necessary material efficiently and professionallytranslated by Sophia Xue.
Chengdu Worldcon had made an ad hoc ruling that the English word limits specified in the WSFS
Constitution for the written fiction categories should be multiplied by 1.6 to get equivalent limits in
Chinese characters (so, for instance, the 40,000 word limit between the novella and novel categories
should equate to 64,000 Chinese characters). We carried out a number of spot checks and found the
1.6 ratio reasonable, so we also chose to adopt it.

Replacement of finalists
Section 3.9.4: After the initial Award ballot is generated, if any finalist(s) are removed for any reason,
they will be replaced by other works in reverse order of elimination.
Two of us wrote in 2017, the first year that EPH was used:
It was put to us that, in the early stages of processing nominations at least, in case a finalist
turned out to be ineligible, or declined nomination, EPH should be re-run for that category
with the former finalist removed ab initio, and a new final ballot determined on that basis.
We observe that any "re-run" of EPH, with one or more candidates removed, carries thesignificant risk that nominees originally determined to have qualified for the final ballot (andmeantime notified of their status as finalists) might be removed from it by a recalculation.
We also observe that the 2016 Business Meeting explicitly removed a provision for rerunning EPH for this purpose from §3.9.4 of the constitution.
We determined that the only mechanism in the constitution for replacing ineligible finalists
is that described in §3.9.4 - finalists which are removed from the final ballot, for any reason,
are replaced in reverse order of elimination from the available nominees, in the order
determined by EPH immediately after nominations close.
The subsequent years of administering EPH have only confirmed the correctness of this approach,and it is also mandated in the Constitution. To summarise:1) Nomination voting closes.
2) Administrators generate the ballot in each category using EPH.
3) The top six nominees in each category are checked for eligibility and willingness to accept
nomination.
4) Any who are ineligible or who decline nomination are replaced by the next available
nominee from the original list generated at step 2.
In 2024, as noted below in discussion of the relevant categories, five nominees declined their placeson the ballot, and we disqualified another three (one of which had also qualified in anothercategory). Each was replaced by the next on the original case generated by EPH in that category. (Inone case, the replacement also turned out to be ineligible and had to be replaced in turn.)
Best Novel
Martha Wells declined nomination for System Collapse. This brought 天帆 (Cosmo Wings) by 江波(Bo Jiang) onto the ballot.
天帆 (Cosmo Wings) carries a copyright date of 1 December 2023. But our research revealed that itwas not actually published until 2024, and was therefore not eligible in the Best Novel category forthe 2024 Hugos under Section 3.2.3 of the Constitution. We are grateful to Bo Jiang for accepting
this disappointing news with good grace. This brought The Saint of Bright Doors, by Vajra
Chandrasekhara, onto the ballot.
The following nomination votes were reallocated to the Best Novel category under Section 3.8.2 of
the Constitution; this did not affect the outcome.
●●●●

System Collapse, by Martha Wells, received 115 nominations for Best Novel and 20 for Best
Novella. All were counted for Best Novel.
He Who Drowned the World, by Shelly Parker Chan, received 73 nominations for Best Noveland one for Best Short Story. All were counted for Best Novel.
The Water Outlaws, by S.L. Huang, received 67 nominations for Best Novel and one for Best
Short Story. All were counted for Best Novel.
Bookshops and Bonedust, by Travis Baldree, received 57 nominations in Best Novel and two
in Best Novella. All were counted for Best Novel.

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen, received a single nominating vote for Best Novel. We did not
rule on its eligibility, as it was nowhere near the top six nominees in this category (or even in the top
two hundred), but any such ruling would have been negative. Northanger Abbey was first publishedin 1818, and first published in the USA in 1833. Neither of those dates satisfies Section 3.4.2 of theConstitution, which would require first publication, first USA publication or first English language
publication to have been in 2023.
Best Novella
Two stories which had first been published in Chinese before 2023 received enough votes to qualify
for the final ballot, and we determined that they were eligible because they were first published in
English, and in the USA, in 2023 (per Sections 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 of the Constitution). These were:●“Seeds of Mercury” / 水星播种 by Wang Jinkang / 王晋康 first published in 2022;●“Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet” / 人生不相见 by He Xi / 何夕 first published in 2010.

The following nomination votes were reallocated to the Best Novella category under Section 3.8.2 of
the Constitution; this did not affect the outcome.
●●

The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older, received 184 nominations for Best
Novella and two for Best Novel. All were counted for Best Novella.
Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher, received 175 nominations for Best Novella and four for Best
Novel. All were counted for Best Novella.

●

人生不相见 / “Life Does Not Allow Us To Meet”, by He Xi, received 120 nominations for Best●

Novella and one for Best Novelette. All were counted for Best Novella.
Rose/House, by Arkady Martine, received 111 nominations for Best Novella and one for Best
Novelette, All were counted for Best Novella.

●●●

Lost in the Moment and Found, by Seanan McGuire, received 103 nominations for Best
Novella and one for Best Novel. All were counted for Best Novella.
Untethered Sky, by Fonda Lee, received 99 nominations for Best Novella and one for Best
Novel. All were counted for Best Novella.
Linghun by Ai Jiang received 31 nominations for Best Novella and one nomination for Best
Novel. All were counted for Best Novella.

Best Novelette“Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition” /〈2181序曲〉再版导言 by Gu Shi / 顾适, was firstpublished in Chinese in 2020, but first published in English translation, and in the USA, in 2023, so wedetermined that it was eligible in this category (per Sections 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 of the Constitution).
海漄 / Hai Ya declined nomination for his story 极北之地 / “The Far North”. This brought “OneMan's Treasure”, by Sarah Pinsker, onto the final ballot.
The following nomination votes were reallocated to the Best Novelette category under Section 3.8.2of the Constitution; this did not affect the outcome.
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极北之地 / “The Far North”, by Hai Ya, received 241 nominations for Best Novelette and 11

for Best Short Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.
“The Year Without Sunshine”, by Naomi Kritzer, received 116 nominations for Best
Novelette and two for Best Short Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.
“On the Fox Roads”, by Nghi Vo, received 56 nominations for Best Novelette and two forBest Short Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.
“Ivy, Angelica, Bay” by C.L. Polk received 47 votes for Best Novelette and one for Best Short
Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.
“Science Facts!”, by Sarah Pinsker, received 31 votes for Best Novelette and one for Best
Short Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.
“Cold Relations”, by Mary Robinette Kowal, received 22 votes for Best Novelette and sevenfor Best Short Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.
"Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge", by Eugenia Triantafyllou, received 27
votes for Best Novelette and one for Best Short Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.
“The Luck Thief”, by Tade Thompson, received 25 votes for Best Novelette and one for Best
Short Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.
"Prince Hat Underground", by Kelly Link, received 26 votes for Best Novelette and one forBest Short Story. All were counted for Best Novelette.

Best Short Story“Answerless Journey” / 没有答案的航程 by Han Song / 韩松, was first published in Chinese in 1995,
but first published in English translation, and in the USA, in 2023, so we determined that it was
eligible in this category (per Sections 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 of the Constitution).

The following nomination votes were reallocated to the Best Short Story category under Section
3.8.2 of the Constitution; this did not affect the outcome.
●

没有答案的航程 / “Answerless Journey”, by Han Song, received 68 votes for Best Short Storyand one for Best Novelette. All were counted for Best Short Story.
●

音桶人希文的故事 / “The Story of Xiwen, the Sound Barrel Man”, by Dan Shi, received 25

votes for Best Short Story and one for Best Novelette. All were counted for Best Short Story.
●

庄子的梦 / “Zhuangzi's Dream”, by Cao Baiyu, received 18 votes for Best Short Story and one●

for Best Novelette. All were counted for Best Short Story.
“Counting Casualties”, by Yoon Ha Lee, received 18 votes for Best Short Story and one forBest Novelette. All were counted for Best Short Story.

Best Series
Section 3.8.3: If any series and a subset series thereof both receive sufficient nominations to appear
on the final ballot, only the version which received more nominations shall appear.
We received a query suggesting that the reference to “subset series” in Section 3.8.3 of theConstitution prohibits both a series and one of its component works from being on the ballot in
different categories in the same year. Consistent with practice since the Best Series category was
instituted, we determined that Section 3.8.3 affects only the Best Series category. The intent of theconstitution is clear - that no series should get two bites of the cherry in the same year.
There were 65 nominating votes for Charles Stross’s series The Laundry Files, 8 for the subset series
The New Management, and 6 voters hedged their bets by voting for “The Laundry Files/The New
Management”. Should we count the 65, 8 and 6 votes separately, or combined in some way?
One other writer’s work came close to being affected by this situation. T. Kingfisher’s series The
Saint of Steel, aka The Paladin Romances, is a subset series of her World of the White Rat stories.
21 voters voted for The Saint of Steel, 2 for its equivalent The Paladin Romances, 18 for the parent
World of the White Rat and 19 for the combined “World of the White Rat/Saint of Steel”. Again,
should we count the 21, 2, 18 and 19 votes separately, or combined in some way?
We determined that voters for the works by Charles Stross wanted to see a series on the ballot
including the 2023 novel Season of Skulls, and that voters for the works by T. Kingfisher wanted tosee a series on the ballot including the 2023 novel Paladin’s Faith. This was clear from the ballots,
where voters are invited to specify a qualifying volume from the series that they nominate.
We accordingly merged all of the votes in both cases in favour of the series or subseries which had
the most support. The final tally therefore reports 79 votes for The Laundry Files, which include asstated above 65 specifying The Laundry Files alone, 8 for The New Management and 6 for “TheLaundry Files/The New Management; and 60 for The Saint of Steel, including 21 specifying The
Saint of Steel alone, 2 for The Paladin Romances, 18 for World of the White Rat and 19 for “Worldof the White Rat/Saint of Steel”.

This did not affect the outcome - the 65 votes for The Laundry Files alone were enough to qualify it
for the final ballot, and the 60 for T. Kingfisher’s work combined were not sufficient for it to qualify.
But it is a departure from the approach taken in some previous years, and hopefully a usefulprecedent for future Administrators.
Best Graphic Story or Comic
We received an enquiry about the eligibility of Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons. The album,
which qualified for the 2024 Hugo final ballot, was published in 2023. It comprises three issues whichwere published in 2022 (the third issue’s cover date is 2023, but it became clear from our researchthat it was already available for purchase in 2022). The query was therefore whether the album
satisfied the criterion of publication in 2023, specified in Section 3.3.6 of the Constitution.
As has been done in previous years, we determined that an album first published in 2023 waseligible, even if it comprised individual issues of a comic all of which were published in years
previous to 2023, as long as none of those issues had previously been a finalist in this category. Thisis settled Hugo practice. In most cases (including Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons) the album
includes some previously unpublished material anyway.
We observe that most readers will buy albums rather than individual issues, and that the date of
publication of an album should normally be taken into account when considering eligibility, provided
that none of the individual issues in that album has appeared on the final ballot previously.
Best Related Work雨果X访谈 / Discover X, a series of video interviews conducted by Tina Wong, received enough votes

to qualify for the final ballot in both Best Related Work and Best Fancast. After consultation withTina Wong, we determined that it is clearly a professional production as defined in Section 3.2.12 of
the Constitution, and therefore not eligible in Best Fancast, but in Best Related Work. The votes
were not combined across the categories (many ballots had nominated it in both).
中国科幻口述史 / Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History received 97 nominating votes as such inBest Related Work. In addition, 23 voters jointly nominated volumes 2 and 3 of 中国科幻口述史; 18
voters nominated just vol 3; 10 voters nominated just vol 2; and 1 voter nominated vol 1.
Volume 1 of 中国科幻口述史 is not eligible for the 2024 Hugo Award because it was a finalist in 2023
(per Section 3.2.2 of the Constitution). We determined that 中国科幻口述史 as a whole is also noteligible in 2024 for the same reason.
Volumes 2 and 3 are however eligible, individually and collectively. We determined that votes in
2024 for 中国科幻口述史, without further specification, should be taken as votes for volumes 2 and 3
jointly.

The final reported vote total therefore combines the 97 votes for the whole series of 中国科幻口述史and the 23 votes specifying both volumes 2 and 3, but not the votes for volume 2 and volume 3
individually.
Volume 3 received enough votes on its own to be reported as one of the top 16 nominees.
Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood declined nomination in this category for their promotional tweets forThis Is How You Lose the Time War (which itself won a Hugo in 2020). This brought The Culture: The
Drawings, by Iain M. Banks, onto the final ballot.
Best Dramatic Presentation categories
We were asked if the Watermill production of the Lord of the Rings musical (first performed inEngland in 2023, and currently playing in Chicago) was eligible in either of the Best Dramatic
Presentation categories. We clarified that while we do not make specific rulings in advance ofcounting the nomination votes, there are several precedents for live theatrical productions
qualifying for the final ballot. In the event, it did not get sufficient votes to qualify for the ballot ineither Best Dramatic Presentation category.
Best Editor, Long Form
Natasha Bardon declined nomination in this category. This brought Kelly Lonesome onto the final
ballot.
Best Fancast
As noted above, we determined that 雨果X访谈 / Discover X was not eligible in this category as it is a
professional publication.
铥铥科幻电波 / Diu Diu Sci Fi Radio received enough votes to qualify in the Best Fancast category,and had produced 90 episodes in 2023. It is owned and produced by 未来事物管理局 / the Future
Affairs Administration (FAA), a private sector body with several full-time staff. After consultation
with the FAA, we determined that 铥铥科幻电波 must also be considered a professional production
under Section 3.2.12 of the Constitution, and therefore ineligible in this category. We are grateful to
Li Bucheng for accepting this disappointing news with good grace.
As a result of these two disqualifications, 科幻Fans布玛 / Science Fiction Fans Buma and PublishingRodeo were brought onto the ballot.
科幻Fans布玛 / Science Fiction Fans Buma had also been nominated, but without enough votes toquality for the ballot, in Best Related Work. We therefore investigated its status as a fan production.
However, we determined that it is not a professional production in the definition of 3.2.12, andtherefore qualifies for Best Fancast and is not eligible for Best Related Work. We did not combine
votes across the two categories.
Best Fan Writer
Camestros Felapton declined nomination in this category. This brought James Davis Nicoll onto thefinal ballot.
Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
Unraveller, by Frances Hardinge, was first published in the UK in 2022, but in the USA in 2023 and istherefore eligible for the Lodestar Award per Section 3.4.2 of the Constitution.
The Astounding Award
Both Moniquill Blackgoose and Sunyi Dean had sufficient votes to qualify for the Astounding Award,
but also have publications pre-dating 2022. After investigation, we determined that neither author’s
pre-2022 publications fulfil the criteria to be considered a professional publication for AstoundingAward purposes.
Xiran Jay Zhao also had sufficient votes to qualify for the Astounding Award, but had been deemed afirst-year eligible finalist by the Hugo administrators in 2022 (some of whom were also on the 2024
team) and would therefore not normally be eligible again in 2024.
Xiran Jay Zhao was deemed ineligible by the Hugo administrators in 2023 for reasons that are notknown to us. Dell Magazines, the sponsor of the Astounding Award, requested that we extend
eligibility for the 2024 Astounding Award to include Xiran Jay Zhao. We did so.
Hugo Voter Packet
The Hugo Voter Packet has become a standard expectation from Worldcons. We remind everyone
that it is not in fact a constitutional obligation; indeed it is not regulated by the Constitution in any
way.
At least 1,600 Worldcon members downloaded some or all of the Hugo Voter Packet in 2024. The
real number is probably quite a bit higher than that, but we can’t be sure.
We provided the Packet as a set of downloads, one for each Hugo category. We also provided theoption to download the entire Packet as a single download except for the (very large) Dramatic
Presentation, Long Form category.
Unfortunately, the service where we hosted the Packet doesn’t provide detailed information about
what’s being downloaded. The only information it provides is a daily report on how much total data
has been downloaded.

So, for example, after the first day that the Packet was available, 10,400 GB of data had reportedly
been downloaded, but we do not know what had been downloaded, or by how many people.
The entire Packet was about 25 GB of material. (20 GB for DPLF, 5 GB for everything else.) So as arough proxy for the number of people downloading the Packet, we counted each 25 GB of data thatwas downloaded as a “full-Packet-download equivalent,” or FPDE.
It’s unlikely that very many people downloaded *more* than 25 GB worth of data from the Packet.
(That could only happen if someone downloaded at least some materials more than once.) So thenumber of FPDEs is a reasonably good approximate lower bound for how many people havedownloaded Packet materials.
Over the course of the 62 days that the Packet was available, the total amount of data downloaded
was 40,539 GB. Dividing that by 25 gives 1,622 FPDEs. So we can be pretty sure that at least 1,622
Worldcon members downloaded Packet materials.
But the number of people who downloaded Packet materials is probably significantly higher thanthat, because probably some members only downloaded one or two categories’ worth of materials.
We don’t have enough information to even guess at a likely upper bound on the number of people
who downloaded Packet materials, but we know that it was no more than the total number ofWorldcon members. About 8,500 members who are eligible to vote, and 3,813 votes were recorded(including the 377 disqualifications) so that’s an upper bound, but it seems unlikely all of them
downloaded the Packet.
Almost 50% of the total amount of data downloaded was downloaded in the first three days after
the Packet launched: about 750 FPDEs in those three days. Almost 20% of the total was downloadedin another activity spike in the last seven days before voting closed: nearly 300 FPDEs. In the 50 or sodays between those two download spikes, the average was about 10 FPDEs per day.
ThanksWe have already noted the contributions of the researchers, programmers and translators above.
We also want to acknowledge and thank Terry Neill and Rosemary Parks as the Hugo Help team;
Dave Gallaher, Jed Hartman and Scott Bobo as the Hugo Packet team; Mark Slater and Meg
McDonald for producing the final ballot announcement video, and all the contributors to the video;
Randall Shepherd as Hugo finalist liaison; and Bridget Chee as our on-site wrangler. We want togratefully acknowledge the energy and commitment of the original Hugo Administrator for 2024, Kat
Jones. And we thank Esther MacCallum-Stewart, the Chair of Glasgow 2024, for everything.
Nicholas Whyte, WSFS Division Head and Hugo Administrator
Cassidy, Deputy Hugo Administrator
Kathryn Duval, WSFS Deputy Division Head
Laura Martins, Hugo Subcommittee member