Five hundred sixteen (516) ballots were received by the deadline of April 26, 2013. This is up one hundred twenty-one ballots from last year. Of these, twenty-three (23) ballots were discarded for lack of cover sheets as required by the instructions sent out with the ballots. This number is down eighty-seven invalid ballots from last year.The resulting four hundred ninety-three (493) ballots were tabulated as follows:
PRESIDENT:
444: Steven Gould
46: Theodore Beale
1: Robert E. Waters
1: John Scalzi
Congratulations to Steven Gould, who will be the next president of the SFWA. I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit surprised. That’s about thirty-one more votes than I anticipated receiving. Ironically, it was a closer vote than those for VP (Rachel Swirsky) and Treasurer (Bud Sparhawk). Anyhow, I certainly wish Steven Gould good fortune in piloting the organization, although given his support for the status quo and his stated opinion that SF/F is not in any trouble as an industry, my concern is that his victory will tend to increase the probability that the organization will founder upon the very shoals my platform was designed to avoid.
But that is Mr. Gould’s concern now, not mine. I appreciate the support from the 46 members who voted for me; the campaign was certainly an eye-opening experience. And if nothing else, the membership is now aware of some of the changes to the industry that are around the corner, which was my primary purpose in running for the office.