2023 Worldcon Site Selection
Site selection for the 2023 Worldcon was held at Discon III in 2021. The bids were Chengdu in 2023 and Winnipeg in '23.
Bidders New Orleans in 2023 folded and Spokane in 2023 was stillborn. Nice in 2023 folded in July 2020. Memphis in 2023 filed its bid papers and was on the ballot, but withdrew in October 2021 (and this fact was noted on the ballot.)
Voting was very heavy with around 2000 mail ballots being received from China.
| Bidder | Pre-Con | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chengdu in 2023 | 1950 | 7 | 19 | 30 | 2006 |
| Winnipeg in '23 | 332 | 97 | 197 | 181 | 807 |
| Memphis in 2023 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
| None of the Above | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
| Free Hong Kong | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Taipei | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Anywhere | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Berlin | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Boston in 2020 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Fandom | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| House of the Rising Sun | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Peggy Rae's House | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Schkeuditz | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Slapout, OK | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Your Mom's House | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Total with Preference | 2292 | 108 | 226 | 214 | 2838 |
| No Preference | 60 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 75 |
| Total counted votes | 2352 | 110 | 230 | 223 | 2915 |
1591 pre-con ballots lacked street addresses, but were still counted. These included 1586 for Chengdu and 5 for no preference. The Site Selection committee also reported that an additional 917 people paid for membership in the 2023 Worldcon (which entitled them to vote in site selection) but did not submit ballots.
It will come as no surprise that the site selection process was fraught with controversy. The requirement that an address be included on the ballot exists for two reasons: To provide both the administering and newly-elected conventions a better chance of actually contacting the voters (who must be members of both conventions), and to make vote fraud more difficult by making it more likely that each ballot corresponds to a real person.
After what appears to have been considerable discussion, the site selection committee ruled that improperly filled out ballots would not be counted. Because any decision would inevitably be controversial (on the one hand allowing a win based on invalid ballots; on the other hand denying a win due to what some saw as a technicality) a motion was presented to the WSFS Business meeting affirming the ruling, and that motion was passed. (The WSFS Business Meeting has no direct authority over site selection. It sets the rules under which it operates via the WSFS Constitution and receives and approves the report of the site selection committee -- but no one knows for sure what would happen if it declined to accept the report! Nonetheless, the WSFS BM was the only body representing fandom which could be asked.)
As a final odd step in an generally odd situation, the chair of Discon 3 overruled site selection and the invalid ballots were counted.
In the end, this was a no-win situation with either result being likely to plunge all fandom into war.
| 2022 | Worldcon Site Selection | 2024 | 2023 |
| This is page about convention bidding, the competition and its outcome. Please extend it by adding information about who was bidding, and how the race went. |
