Please read both sides before voting and send the entire sheet as your vote.
The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund was created in 1953 to provide funds to bring well-known and active fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean across the Atlantic. Since that time, TAFF has regularly brought North American fans to European conventions and European fans to North American conventions. It exists solely through the support and continued generosity of fandom.
Who may vote?
Voting in the 2023 race is open to anyone active in fandom before April 2021 who donates at least £3 (GBP), €3 (EUR), or $4 (USD) to TAFF. (Larger donations are very gratefully accepted.) Voting is by secret ballot, with one vote per person. You must provide your name on the ballot. You may change your vote at any time prior to the deadline. All votes must reach the administrators by 11:59 pm (US Pacific Daylight Time, -07:00 UTC) on Tuesday, April 11, 2023.
Donations
The generosity of fandom has sustained TAFF, our longest-running travel fund, for almost 70 years. We gratefully accept your freely given money, material for auctions, and other relevant donations: give early and often! Please contact your nearest administrator for details.
Candidates
Each candidate has posted a bond of £10 or €12 promising to travel, if elected, to the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC): Pemmi-con in Winnipeg, Canada, 20-23 July 2023. Each candidate has three nominators on their side of the Atlantic and two on the other, each of whom has personally contacted the administrators with their nomination. Each candidate has also provided a platform of up to 101 words (published overleaf). Anyone active in SF fandom can run for TAFF as long as they fulfill these criteria for the relevant race. Contact your administrator about future races!
Voting system
TAFF uses a preferential voting system similar to the system used in voting for the Hugo Awards. Voters should rank candidates in order of preference. If necessary, the lowest-ranked candidates will be eliminated from the race and those votes redistributed in subsequent rounds according to the next ranking until one candidate has a clear majority. A candidate must also receive at least 20% of the first-place votes on both sides of the Atlantic to win. Any candidate failing to receive this minimum percentage on either side will be dropped, and the second-place votes on their ballots counted as first-place votes in the next ballot count. (Note: In years with more than three candidates, this rule is not applied until after the candidates with the fewest votes have been eliminated and just three candidates are left.) Votes will be counted according to a voter’s contact address, not where they send their ballot. Votes from fans not resident in either Europe or North America will not count toward either side of the Atlantic for the purpose of this rule.
Hold Over Funds
This choice, like "No Award" in Hugo balloting, gives you the chance to vote for no TAFF trip this year should you feel none of the candidates deserve your support. "Hold Over Funds" is exempt from the 20% requirement: if it receives a majority of the votes on the final ballot, no trip will be held this year.
No Preference
For voters who prefer not to choose between candidates but don’t want the trip held over.
How to vote
The minimum donation to vote is £3 (GBP) or €3 (EUR) or $4 (USD). Checks should be made payable to "TAFF" (for cheques in GBP) or to "Michael Lowrey" (for checks in USD). PayPal donations should be made to one of the email addresses below. If you mail your printed and signed ballot, send it and your donation to:
Europe: Sofia Karlsson, Lönngatan 44 C, 214 49 Malmö, Sweden. PayPal payments to: EUTAFF@gmail.com
North America: Michael J. Lowrey, 1847 N 2nd Str., Milwaukee, WI 53212, U.S.A. PayPal payments to: n.a.taff.2020@gmail.com
The 2023 Candidates
Sandra Bond
I tripped over fandom at the age of seventeen, and immediately fell in love with it, in that blundering and overblown way in which teenagers tend to conduct romance.
In the thirty-five years since then, I’ve partaken in pretty much every branch and every subdivision which fandom has to offer, and the one constant about it all is that I’m still in love with it.
If I win it, I shall look after TAFF with love.
My fan career's been far too long
For just one paragraph,
So all I'm going to say is this –
Vote Sandra Bond for TAFF.Nominated by: (Europe) Claire Brialey, Caroline Mullan, Alison Scott. (NA) John D. Berry, Ted White.
Mikołaj Kowalewski
I am conrunner, volunteer, panelist, vote counter for Polish sf literary awards and recently member of board European Science Fiction Society as award administrator. I have been involved in fandom since 2015 and I participated in around 50 (7 outside Poland) conventions helping at most of them. Currently living and studying in Denmark hoping to explore fandom here. I am mostly interested in SF literature but board games and RPG are also my thing. It is my second time running in TAFF and I hope to have an opportunity to show Polish and European fandom on the other side of the pond.
Nominated by: (Europe) Marcin Kłak, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Carolina Gómez Lagerlöf. (NA) Kat O'Steen Jones, Ian Stockdale.
Please rank candidates with 1, 2, etc. where 1 is your first preference:
[__] Sandra Bond
[__] Mikołaj Kowalewski
[__] Hold Over Funds
[__] No Preference
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If you think your name may not be known to the administrators, please provide the name of an active fan (not a fan group, a candidate, or one of their nominators) who is known to the administrators and who can vouch for you being an active fan, eligible to vote.
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TAFF might contact you regarding your ballot or to send out newsletters. We do not publish your data or pass it to any other organization.
Reproduction of this form is encouraged. It is the official voting vehicle and must be reproduced verbatim.
All votes must reach the administrators by 11:59 pm (US Pacific Daylight Time, -07:00 UTC) on Tuesday, April 11, 2023.
Anyone reproducing this form should substitute their name here: David Langford