This one hurts. James P Baen failed to win a Hugo for Best Editor (Long) by 2 votes at the end of an extremely complex preference balloting system, despite winning most of the way through. In first preference votes he was ahead by a significant margin to Tor's Patrick Nielsen Hayden in second place (109:83) and he maintained that down to the fourth round (124:107) but when it came down to the final calculation between the two, PNH won by 158:156. This means that, assuming PNH and hia wife Theresa voted for him, then their two votes were what swing the ballot his way.
Note that the voting here is a disgrace. There were only 364 (83+109+78+47+32+15) people who could be bothered to vote, one of them being me. If ever there was a sign that the Hugo is a total sham this is it. The Hugo is supposed to represent the "readers", but even in the most popular category (best novel) only 471 people could be bothered to vote. I would need to check on some of the other categories but it seems clear to me that 200 people who voted in lock step could a) guarantee a nomination and b) almost certainly win any and all Hugo awards.
I admit to being extremely tempted to stump up the money to get a hundred or so drones to register as non-attending members to the next worldcon and vote the way I want them to. I believe I would need no more than about $10,000 to do this.
Unfortunately this won't get Jim Baen his Hugo because he's dead and therefore no longer eligable for another attempt.
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