Hundreds of fraudulent votes cast in prestigious science fiction prize

(CNN) — Hundreds of votes were cast fraudulently for one finalist in the prestigious Hugo Awards, which honors the best science fiction and fantasy works of the previous year, its administrative team has revealed.

Nearly 10% of votes were deemed fraudulent, with 377 out of 3,813 votes being disqualified.

Many votes were made under “obvious fake names,” the Hugo Awards’ administrators said in a statement Monday, explaining that there was “a run of voters whose second names were identical except that the first letter was changed, in alphabetical order,” as well as a “run of voters whose names were translations of consecutive numbers.”

Suspicions grew further as a large number of these votes were cast for one candidate in particular, who administrators have chosen not to name, citing a lack of evidence that they were aware of the ruse. They have instead been dubbed “Finalist A.”

“This pattern of data is startlingly and obviously different from the votes for any other finalist in 2024, and indeed for any finalist in any of the previous years,” the administrative team said.

The Hugo Awards can only be voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Society, who gather at annual conventions commonly known as “Worldcon,” which brings together science fiction enthusiasts from around the globe.

A membership for the World Science Fiction Society costs about $58 (£45), meaning the membership fees to cast 377 fraudulent votes would cost about $21,900 (£16,960).

The awards team said it had received a “confidential report” that one person had been sponsoring others to join the convention and vote for their preferred candidate.

“Finalist A” did not win their category once the discredited votes had been removed, according to the administrators.

The Hugo Awards, established in 1953, has 15 categories, including best novel, best short story and best fanzine. Previous winners of the best novel category include J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” Martha Wells’ “Network Effect” and N.K. Jemisin’s “The Stone Sky.”

John Scalzi, one of this year’s finalists for his book “Starter Villain,” praised the Hugo Awards’ transparency in a post on his website. “To the person or persons going out of their way to try to screw around with this years Hugo: You just threw a whole lot of money into the trash, pal,” Scalzi added.

The administrative team said: “We want to reassure 2024 Hugo voters that the ballots cast were counted fairly.

“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.”

This year’s Hugo Awards are being held in the Scottish city of Glasgow and will be hosted in Seattle, Washington, next year.

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