TAFF OFFICIAL is the term report of the 1983-84 US TAFF administrator, Avedon Carol (4409 Woodfield Road, Kensington, MD 20895), who is happy to be handing the job over to someone else. Yes, I know these things are traditionally no more than a single sheet, but even the list of voters takes up more room than that this time. That's why I'm calling it "TAFF Official" -- so you'll know it's one, even tho it doesn't look like one. 5 January, 1985.
VOTING RESULTS Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden won a first-round victory over Rich Coad, Hold Over Funds, and write-in candidate Martha Beck. The voting was unusually heavy, with more than 500 people voting in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The numbers:
M. Beck P&TNH R. Coad HOF NA&Oz 183 144 42 10 = 379 UK 6 117 9 2 = 134 Totals: 189 261 51 12 513 Congratulations, Patrick & Teresa (at least, I hope congrats are in order).
Not all of the checks have cleared nor the other business taken care of (I wonder how much it's going to cost to produce this document, anyway), but it looks like I will be handing over more than $4100 to my successors. This is a little bit more than the $3554.86 received from Stu Shiffman two years ago.
In case anyone is interested, the largest regional donor was the Pacific Northwest, not including funds raised through fanzine sales and the auction at LAcon. It is not true that the midwest or convention fans contribute a majority of the money -- in fact, all of the trip expenditures for Rob and myself were made up by coastal and fanzine fans, if anyone really wants to make an issue of it.
However, credit where it's due: Jerry Kaufman, Joyce Scrivner, Rusty Hevelin and Marty Cantor were responsible for some pronounced fund-raising efforts on behalf of TAFF, and we'd like to thank them very much. Raffles and auctions do tend to buoy up good feeling about TAFF, and auctioneering is an especially tough job which few people do really well. My thank-you note to InConJunction was returned as undeliverable, so thanks to them, too, for the donation. There was also at least one omission in the list of thank-yous I asked Mike Glyer to publish (I think this time it was my clerical error) -- the money Joni Stopa sent was from both Wilcon and Windycon, so thanks to Windycon for their donation last year.
Also my personal thanks to the many of you who enclosed sympathy cards, cheer-up notes, and congratulations with your ballots. I also liked the little jokes and things, which were a relief from having to try to decipher illegible signatures and addresses (often unsuccessfully).
Elsewhere in this publication you will find a list of voters (from the US only -- considering the numbers, I'm going to let Rob do the UK by himself). But I'm afraid we have other business to deal with first, as I have received quite a number of queries and complaints regarding improprieties in the midwest.
A midwestern fan sent me a flier he felt was Not Kosher, and I must say I concur. This document is a list of fans whose names can be used on the ballot's reference line by voters unknown to the administrator. This is questionable electioneering at best, and I hope never to see such a thing again. In my opinion, future administrators should be prepared to deal with similar materials in the harshest manner.
I have also received an eye-witness account of Martha Beck's supporters persuading a fan to vote for Martha after that fan had insisted she was not eligible to vote ("Vote anyway, we'll vouch for you."). Martha Beck and Dana Siegel have provided me with the name of one such voter and her ballot has been disqualified. However, given the results and the potential cost to TAFF if I attempted to validate all of these ballots in light of the above, I have decided to forgo the formalities, as it would not have any real effect on the primary outcome.
Some voters have complained that they felt their vote was secured under false pretenses -- they were told that I had refused Martha Beck an extension for nominations in disregard of precedent. When they discovered that this was not true, they said they felt defrauded. One such voter insisted on changing his vote, and although I would not normally have done so, I allowed it in this case (it still doesn't make any difference to the outcome, however).
In regard to that, I submit the following: Historically, it has been treated as a pretty hard-and-fast rule that when there is only one candidate in a TAFF race, nominations are held open until a second candidate can be found. The intent of this is simple enough: Don't make anyone run against Hold Over Funds. "There is no limit on the number of nominees on a ballot except that there must be at least two," according to the 1980 TAFF NEWS released by Terry Hughes.
For this reason, both Dave Langford and Kevin Smith, during their administrations, extended the nominations deadline to find second candidates (respectively, Rog Peyton came in against Kevin Smith, and D. West came in against Rob Hansen). And I would have done the same had no second candidature come in by the deadline to oppose the Nielsen Haydens. I had been querying all sorts of people for some time before the deadline in an effort to find another candidate, and I sent requests for announcements to several faneds (or asked them in person). The result was that Rich Coad and Martha Beck both tried to fill the bill.
Martha Beck's platform arrived without the required bond or signed nominations. This was in advance of the deadline but I decided to give her a break because I had a feeling she had been misled by her supporters into believing she didn't have to do more than she had and that they would take care of everything. My phone call to her on the same day confirmed my feeling that this was the case. Normally, people intending to stand for TAFF contact the administrators and find out what they have to do, and I must admit my dismay that Martha had not been advised by her supporters to do this and did not consider it on her own. However, it didn't appear to be her idea to begin with and I saw no reason to be hard-nosed about it. I carefully spelled out the terms of the extension and what I would require of Martha, and she had Joni Stopa call me and I repeated the same to her. Send me signed nominations, and I will accept them if they have been mailed by the postmark deadline, no matter when I get them.
Two weeks after the deadline, I didn't have the British nominations and neither did Rob Hansen. I told him to check with Kevin Smith, who had received them -- one, from Pete Presford, was not written until a week after the deadline, despite the fact that he had been told (according to a note I have from Martha) what was necessary. I had received all of the Coad and Nielsen Hayden nominations, and Rob objected to allowing a second extension to Martha. I had attempted to find precedents for that extension between phone calls, but everything I could find went the other way -- for disqualifying the nominee when a nomination came in less than 24 hours late, in fact.
With precedent going against me, I contacted the Nielsen Haydens (I tried to reach Rich Coad but there was no answer at his place) to get the opponent's opinions. The Nielsen Haydens and Stu Shiffman were strongly opposed to removing Martha's name from the ballot -- but Rob still insisted, with Kevin backing him up, that one extension was enough and this was Not On.
So, I had to throw out my stencil and type a new ballot. I told Joni Stopa on the phone what had happened, and Joni said, "That's OK, we only wanted to have someone else on the ballot, and Rich Coad does that anyway, so we'll try and do it right in two years, maybe," or words pretty close to that. So, as far as I knew, there was no Beck candidacy and she might try to "do it right in two years." I sent Joni a packet of ballots anyway (which is more than I did for anyone else, by the way -- Rich and the Nielsen Haydens had to produce their own).
Shortly thereafter, I began to receive materials, mostly originating with Jackie Causgrove and Dave Locke, suggesting that I had gone against precedent in refusing Martha an extention (In fact, I had gone against precedent when I did give her one) and delayed sending ballots to the midwest in an effort to scuttle Martha's candidacy. The first I heard of this, however, came in the form of a (polite and intelligent) letter from Mike Glicksohn, who was not making charges and didn't believe any of it but did wonder why I hadn't "responded" to the "charges." I wrote back to Mike and told him I could hardly have responded since this was the first I was hearing of them, but I was quite upset to hear that this sort of whisper campaign was afoot (complete with the attendant charge that I had refused to respond to charges which had not even been made known to me!) and that after I had bent over backwards for Martha, Locke and Causgrove were actually trying to fuel her campaign by claiming I was trying to scuttle it -- scuttle a campaign I hadn't even known was going on!
In the midst of this, I received (from irate midwesterners who were not pleased to be represented by fight-making and prevarication from Locke and Causgrove) fliers claiming that the midwest was being short-shrifted by the administrators and the fans on the East and West coasts, and slanted to give the impression there was some sort of regional honor at stake in the TAFF race. This is also the same period during which I received that unforgiveable flier with the list of names for the reference line.
These documents, along with some even more appalling materials which insisted that I should have disregarded British opinion on TAFF matters (!), began to reach British shores (most of it through intermediaries -- the Beck campaign was conducted almost entirely in America and came as a surprise to Britons, who were beginning to feel bushwhacked), and reaction was furious and fast. In very little time I was informed of a petition being circulated in Britain decrying British disenfranchisement and demanding a freeze on British funds in the event of a Beck win (120 signatures).
If you're having trouble figuring out why Britons were so unhappy, you might note that most of these materials Causgrove and Locke were sending out omitted to mention the origins and purpose of TAFF, published rumor (and lies) as fact, and treated TAFF as an institution which could be carried out without reference to British fandom (that phrase, "without reference to British fandom," is one you should take note of -- the Brits have been using it a lot in this) or even in direct opposition to it. (Those of you who have seen Locke & Causgrove's interesting "Open Letter" to Rob Hansen may be interested to know that as of this writing Rob has yet to receive a copy. For that matter, Rich Coad never received Jackie's discussionzine, ETTLE -- pretty interesting that she didn't think a candidate should be involved in the discussion, eh?)
So let's look at a little of the TAFF history that Jackie omitted. Terry Hughes has been kind enough to supply me with a few historical documents that might illuminate the cause of the furor. To begin with, Dick Eney in FANCYCLOPEDIA II:
The original idea was that nominees should be "someone fairly well-known to both British and American fandom" and that voters "should have been active in fandom to the extent of having subscribed to or contributed to at least one fanzine or joined a fan-club or organization."
And Walt Willis, on the 1956 TAFF voting form in Hyphen #15, wrote:
There has been some discussion behind the scenes as to what should constitute a 'fan' for TAFF purposes. I feel that, especially in view of TAFF's international character, a candidate should have had some connection with fanzines, to the extent of contributing or commenting.
It makes sense. We all have ways to honor fans within the fandom where they operate. In America, numerous conventions honor American fans who have contributed within the operative group by making them Fan GoH at local conventions. In Britain, local honors are conferred through the Ansible Poll and the Nova award. True, many American fan polls, including the Hugo, are theoretically internationally open, but even when the most deserving honoree is clearly a Briton, it has become a truism that they seldom if ever win. Americans so overwhelm the voting that the British always end up disenfranchised. This sort of thing has made such awards as the Nova necessary -- if the awards are open to Americans, Britons can't seem to win no matter what they do.
TAFF has been virtually the only internationally open award system which recognizes British participation for some years now. Because of the alternating rule, half of all winners must be from Europe, and because it is an award of trans-Atlantic achievement, it has always been understood that Britons must necessarily have a say in who the winner will be and how the rules will be designed and enforced. (After all, they invented it.)
Indeed, if anyone doubts the difference between British participation's impact in TAFF and in other supposedly international rewards-systems, a look at where the decisions have been made for the winners in past races should demonstrate it. Despite the fact that there is generally a larger voting pool in America, it has usually been the host country that swings the vote, no matter which side is the sender country. Kevin Smith lost in Britain, and Rob Hansen tied with West in Britain, but we were the host country and we made the decisions for Smith and Hansen. In this most recent race, Martha Beck had more first-place votes in America (a write-in candidate!) than the Nielsen Haydens, but British voting made the decision. And British voting demonstrated, if nothing else, that Britons were not very happy with the idea that the decision might be taken away from them.
TAFF was established in 1953 by Walter Willis, Chuck Harris, Don Ford, and others with a twofold purpose: (1) to promote increased contact between the fandoms on each side of the Atlantic Ocean, and (2) to honor those fans who voters feel have worked towards this goal and who are well known to both fandoms.
-- Terry Hughes, Noreascon II program book.
Just as fan GoH-ships are accorded for work within the fandom represented at the convention, so is TAFF awarded for work within its own fandom -- trans-Atlantic fandom.
But some people feel that this sort of requirement necessarily omits "con-fans." I'm not sure I understand what a "con" fan is, though, since some people recently seem to use this phrase to pretend that people who are avid convention-goers and even hard-working convention planners are not "con fans," as if putting out a fanzine somehow negated all our work on conventions, our attendance at cons, and even our enjoyment of them.
So why did Harris and Willis feel fanzine activity was necessary? Because for the most part, this is the primary means of contact with the other fandom. I suppose if you can afford to make enough phone calls to enough fans in the other country, they might be willing to overlook the fact that you haven't made yourself known to them in print, but the point is that before you expect them to open their homes to you, you ought to have done something to earn the invitation from them. How can they vote knowledgeably on you if you've made no attempt to let them know who you are? And how can you vote knowledgeably for them if you won't read what they write?
So here are the British, already feeling disenfranchised in every other supposedly "international" venue, and they start receiving publications that overlook them, dismiss them out of hand, or even insist that the US TAFF administrator should have gone against the sense of British fandom in TAFF matters. They found this less than pleasing, and I can't blame them. The idea that the US has an obligation to tell the British to fuck-off in the name of trans-Atlantic harmony is a bit much for my logic circuits.
Those of us who have worked hard to maintain that trans-Atlantic relationship have not been pleased to see the kind of trouble-making, dissembling, and disregard for the British connection that Causgrove and Locke have injected into the race. And many midwesterners have complained that this was an unfair representation of themselves and of Martha Beck. Having spent several hours with Martha myself, I can only agree -- I doubt she is the kind of person who would encourage this kind of behavior.
Given the circumstances and the incredible pressures these placed on the candidates and both administrators, I feel that the Nielsen Haydens demonstrated admirable restraint. I'm sure they join me in thanking Mike Glicksohn for his attempts to keep the record straight, but Jackie and Dave apparently have more time and money to devote to starting fallacious rumors than the rest of us have for quashing them.
What follows next will be a list of US voters -- but first, please don't forget from now on you send all your TAFF stuff to:
PATRICK & TERESA NIELSEN HAYDEN
75 Fairview Avenue #2B
New York, NY 10040Now. The typos to follow are mine and Alexis Gilliland's, but are as likely to be a result of your own wretched handwriting. Some of you should be ashamed.
(Note: the Nielsen Haydens plan in the near future to publish something which will discuss TAFF in greater detail and also give the precise figures of the amount I hand over to them when everything is put together)
1984-85 AMERICAN TAFF VOTERS
Alyson Abramowitz. William C. S. Affleck Asch Lowe. Sid Altus. Harry Andruschak. Lynne Aronson. Mark Aronson. Bruce D. Arthurs. Lon Atkins. David M. Axler.
Alan Babcock. Lenny Bailes. Diane J. Bailey. Robin W. Bailey. Thomas R. Barber. Craig Bearfield. Bryan Barrett. John Bartelt. Chris Bates. Denise I. Batts. Allen Baum. Covert J. Beach. Robin Beal. Allan Beatty. Henry C. Beck Jr.. Irene Beck. Martha Beck. Doris Bercarich. Richard Bergeron. Alex Berman. John D. Berry. Joe Bethancourt. Steven Bryan Bieler. D. Steven Black. Mark L. Blackman. E. Michael Blake. Judith Blinder. Suzanne Alles Blom. Perdita Boardman. Rhonda Booth. Douglas Booze. Bill Bowers. David Bratman. Ellen Braun. Michael J. Braun. Seth Breidbart. William M. Breiding. David Brim. David Brin. Brian Earl Brown. Charlotte M. Brown. Karol M. Brown. rich brown. Algis Budrys. Michael Lee Burgess. Bill Burns. Mary J. Burns. Pat Burrows. Linda E. Bushyager.
Allyn Cadogan. Tanzen Cannoy. Stephen A. Carey. John Carl. Rose Carlson. Larry Carmody. Terry Carr. Rebecca Cartwright. Jon R. Caulkett. Jackie Causgrove. William Cavin. Ann L. Chancellor. Anton Chernoff. Gail M. Christopherson. Alina Chu. David W. Clark. Christopher N. Clayton. David Clements. Curt Clemmer. Cheryl Cline. Patricia Clenent. Martha J. Coady. Eli Cohen. Sandy Cohen. Sidney Coleman. S. Cook. Cecilia Cosentini. Rich Coad. Bruce Coulsen. Lori R. Coulsen. Robert Coulsen. Mary E. Cowan. Barbara Cross. Janet R. Cruickshank. Allen Curry.
Gary Deindorfer. Jane Dennis. Scott Dennis. Frank Denton. Howard DeVore. Dean Dicerscuow(?). Michael Dobson. Maureen Dorris. R. J. Doyle. Ron Drummond. Rachelle DuBey-Lipton. Karrie Dunning. Shelley Dutton. Allyson Dyar.
Lise Eisenberg. Alex Eisenstein. Phyllis Eisenstein. Yale Edeiken.
Gary Farber. Doug Faunt. Moshe Feder. Judy Fetter. Terry Floyd. George Flynn. Cindy Ford. Donald Franson. Randolph Fritz.
Gil Gaier. Terry Garey. Rick Gellman. David D. George. Linda S. Gerstein. Candis E. Gibbard. William Gibson. Richard H. Gilliam. Alexis A. Gilliland. Gail Gillispie. Mike Glicksohn. Seth Goldberg. Jeanne Gomoll. Victor Gonzalez. Rober S. Goodman. Alan Greenberg. Bob Greenberg.
Paul R. Haas. Gay Haldeman. Michael Hamblen. Carey Handfield. Halina K. Harding. Mark Hardy(?). Michael Harper. Fred Haskell. Chris Hatton. Jane Hawkins. Marty Helgesen. Stuart C. Hellinger. Tina M. Henry. Rusty Hevelin. John Hertz. Rosemary B. Hickey. Arthur D. Hlavaty. John A. R. Hollis. James R. Hoss. Kim Huett. Terry Hughes. Lucy Huntzinger. Sandra H. Hyde.
Scott K. Imes.
Linda Jacobs. Kent Johnson. Lenore Jean Jones. Raymond L. Jones. Sandra L. Jordan. Ken Josenhans.
Neil E. Kaden. Eric Kagan. Janet Kagan. Sherry Katz. Jerry Kaufman. Morris M. Keesan. Jon S. Kerr. Greg Ketter. Jay Kinney. Lynn Kuehl. Tim Kyger.
John W. Langner. George Lankowski. Owen K. Laurion. Roy Lavender. Hope Leibowitz. Rebecca Lesses. Susan Levy. Suford Lewis. Ben Liberman. Robert Lichtman. Dennis Lien. E. B. Lindsay. Douglas A. Lott. Elan Jane Litt. Dave Locke. Anne-Laurie Logan. Lyn Laughlin-Curry. A. Losin. Do-Ming Lum. Lesliegh Luttrell. Barry Lyn-Waitsman. Marcelle H. Lyn-Waitsman. Dennis Lynch.
Linda McAllister. Rich McAllister. Robert A. MacAvoy. Drew MacDonald. Erin McKee. Dean McLaughlin. Gloria Lee McMillan. Beatrice Mahaffey. Ricia Mainhardt. Darlene N. Maldonado. Jim Mann. Cass W. Marshall. Paul Marxen. Vicki H. Marxen. Lisa Mason. Candice Massey. Gary S. Mattingly. Dan Maxim. Eric Mayer. Kathy Mayer. Marie D. Mayer. Christine Matson. Lori Meltzer. Craig Miller. Teresa Minambres. Jennifer Mitchell. John Mitchell. Len Moffatt. June Moffat. G. Patrick Molloy. Ken Moore. Lynne Ann Morse. Linda Moss. Mary Anne Mueller. Janice Murray.
Dean Natkin. John Newman. Marilyn R. Newton. R.K. Nicholson. Erica Nielsen. Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Teresa Nielsen Hayden. Debbie Notkin. John J. Novak.
Andrew J. Offut. Jodie Offut. Frank Olynyk. Mark L. Olson. James H. O'Meara.
Jack Palmer. Helen M. Parker. Patricia "Spike" Parsons. Anne Passovoy. Ross Pavlac. Peggy Rae Pavlat. Michael J. Peckovich. Lee C. Pelton. Tom Perry. Stephen Perry. Patty Peters. Dawn Piaskon. D. Potter. Mary A. Price. William A. Price. Sarah Prince. Frederick Prophet.
Midge Reitan. Neil rest. Roger Reynolds. Sandra Reynolds. Mark W. Richards. Dave Rike. Gary R. Robe. Alan Rosenthal. Perry Rothenbaum. Eric Rowe. Peter Rowe. Joanna Russ.
Louise Sachter. Joseph A. Sarno. Sharon Sbarsky. Kate Schaefer. Jeff Schalles. Joyce Scrivner. Missy Shadowens. Scotty Shadowens. Andi Shechter. Ricky Sheppard. M.L. Sherred. T.L. Sherred. Stu Shiffman. David C. Shockley. Dana B. Siegel. Marty Siegrist. Patricia Sims. Roger Sims. Jon Singer. Al Sirois. Fran Skene. Amgela Smith. Gerald Smith. Jeff Smith. Richard H.E. Smith II. Lee Smoire. Rick Sneary. Chuck Spear. Martha Soukup. Richard C. Spelman. Dale Staley. Larry Stark. Allen M. Steele Jr.. Suzi Stefl. Judy (KAJ) Stevens. Elaine Stiles. Stephen Stiles. Paul Stinchfield. Stu Stinson. Debra Stopa. John Stopa. Joni Stopa. Chuch Stout. Megret Stull. Scott Sweebe.
Roy Tackett. Michelle Tenney. Matthew Tepper. Elessar Tetramariner. Peter Theron. Christine Thomas. Pascal J. Thomas. Carolyn H. Thompson. Amy Thomson. Monique Tiffany. Suzanne Tompkins. Phil Tortorici. Bruce Townley. Gregg T. Trend. Bob Tucker. Larry Tucker. Nancy Tucker.
Doug Van Dorn. Anna Vargo.
Melody A. Wade. Karan Wagle. William C. Wagner. Lanny Waitsman. Michael Wallis. Michael R. Walsh. Marcus D. Watts. Bob Webber. Jean Weber. Tom Weber Jr.. Ann Weiser. Toni Weisskopf. Pamela Welper. Donald Wenzel. Peter Wezeman. Donya Hazard White. Jonathan White. Ted White. Tom Whitmore. Art Widner. Pavi Williams. Marc Willner. Janet Wilson. David Wixon. Elaine Wojciechowski. Hania Wojtowicz. Gene Wolfe. Lewis H. Wolkoff.
Ben Yalow. Jean Young.
Leah Zeldes. Richard W. Zellich.
And two people whose names I couldn't read at all.
Ballots arriving too late to be counted came from: Joan Hanke-Woods, B.G. Workman, Mike Glyer, Marty Cantor, Robbie Cantor, Jean Lynn Barnard, Karen Trego, Denys Howard, Justin Ackroyd, and Marc Ortlieb. (And if you don't say different, your money goes into the fund, folks.) 4 January 1985.
THE BACK PAGE You can't just let a back page go to waste -- after all, it's there whether you want it or not. And I hate just having a return address sitting there naked. So I thought I'd take this space to make a few notes about problems Patrick and Teresa might want to discuss in future.
Like: Do people who write checks on foreign banks know how banking works? ...Do some of the people voting have a problem understanding the preferential balloting system? ...Is there any point in keeping a "write-in" line which is now being used only to circumvent the nominating process? ...Is there a way to teach people the difference between the words "impartial" and "indifferent"? ...Is literacy a requirement for voting in TAFF? ...Is there a way to enforce eligibility requirements? ...What do you do when someone tells you they ignored a specific rule on the ballot because, "We didn't know it was a real rule"? ...Is the assumption of "impartiality" merely an excuse for people to harass an administrator for failing to make enemies of all of the candidates? ...Should illegible ballots be disallowed? ...Is friendship something to be suspicious of in a TAFF race (and why isn't enmity more suspicious)?
Duplication courtesy of QWERTYUIOPress ::
TAFF OFFICIAL
4409 Woodfield Road
Kensington, MD 20895
USA