Dummy Online Voting
Please read the full text of the TAFF ballot below before voting. Entries marked * are required.
Minimum donation to vote: £3.00/$4.00/€4.00. You can donate either before or after voting.
Dummy TAFF Ballot
North America to EuropeThis ballot uses the 2017 wording (Helsinki, etc) with dummy candidates, platforms and nominators "invented" by Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden for a long-ago issue of their newsletter TAFFfluvia.
Please read both sides before voting and send the entire sheet as your vote.
The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund was created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring wellknown 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 of fandom. That support, and the continued generosity of fandom, are what make TAFF possible.
Who may vote?
Voting in the 2017 race is open to anyone active in fandom before April 2015 who donates at least £3.00 (GBP) or $3.00 (USD) to TAFF (larger donations are very gratefully accepted). Voting is by secret ballot: one vote per person, and 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 midnight (Eastern US time) on Saturday, March 4, 2017.Donations:
TAFF gratefully accepts your freely given money, material for auction and other relevant donations; such generosity has sustained the Fund for more than 60 years. TAFF is fandom's longest-running travel fund – give early and often! Please contact your nearest administrator for details.Candidates:
Each candidate has posted a bond of $20 promising to travel, if elected, to the 2017 Worldcon in Helsinki, Finland. 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 fulfil these criteria for the relevant race; contact your administrator about future races!Voting System:
TAFF uses a preference voting system similar to the system used in voting for the Hugo Awards. Voters should rank candidates in order of preference. This allows for the lowest-ranked candidates to be eliminated from the race and those votes redistributed according to the next ranking until one candidate has a clear majority. A candidate must receive at least 20% of the #1 rank 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. 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 towards 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:
Either send a copy of this form with a check, or pay via PayPal. The minimum donation to vote is $3 (USD) or £3 (GBP) or 3 Euros. In the US Checks should be made payable to "Curt Phillips" (for checks in USD) or to "TAFF" (for cheques in GBP or Euros). PayPal donations should be made to the email addresses below with your contact details and your ranked voting preferences in the comments' section. If you do not fill in the comments section, your vote may not be counted! Send your signed and completed ballot form and donation to:Europe: Anna Raftery – cheques payable to "TAFF" 13 Chatham House, 10 Melbourne Road, Wallington, SM6 8SB UK. Paypal using email: anna.raftery [at] gmail.com
North America: Curt Phillips – Checks payable to "Curt Phillips", 19310 Pleasant View Dr., Abingdon, VA 24211. Paypal using email: absarka_prime [at] comcast.net
The 20?? TAFF Candidates
Umberto Eco
Once it had landed the silence was gone -- like an illusion that is destroyed when the curtains of a stage are pulled aside. The silence was broken by metallic noises. Harsh, clanking, jarring metallic noises. Things were stirring within the disc ship. Strange metallic things; things that were alien to the soft green grass of earth. Terrifying things, steel things; metal things; things with cylindrical bodies and multitudinous jointed limbs. Things without flesh and blood. Things that were made of metal and plastic and transistors and valves and relays, and wires. Metal things. Metal things that could think. Thinking metal things. Terrifying in their strangeness, in their
Nominated by: McGeorge Bundy, Northrop Frye, A.L. Morton, Tristram Tzara, and Angus Wilson.
F.R. Leavis
peculiar metal efficiency. Things the like of which had never been seen on the earth before. Things that were sliding back panels... Robots! Robots were marching, and were about to spread havoc and destruction across the earth, and as yet the sleeping earth knew nothing of their coming. As mysterious as anything in the great mysterious universe. The robots in their disc ship had arrived... There were strange flickering lights around the ship. Terrifying lights, weird lights, uncanny lights, awful lights, inhuman lights, alien lights, robot lights; and all around a great hemispherical glowing shield sprang up. A thing with a pale greeny blue luminescence. An electronic
Nominated by: T.S. Eliot, Harriet Monroe, Stephen Spender, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and Gore Vidal.
Leonard & Virginia Woolf
thing, a mechanical thing. A thing that was part of the robot genius. A thing that was as strange as the ship and its occupants. A force field, a glowing greenish blue force field... Once it had landed the silence was gone -- like illusion which is destroyed when the curtains of a stage are pulled aside. The silence was broken by metallic noises. Harsh, clanking, jarring metallic noises. Things were stirring within the disc ship. Strange metallic things; things that were alien to the soft green grass of earth. Terrifying things, steel things; metal things; things with cylindrical bodies and multitudinous jointed limbs. Things without flesh and
Nominated by: Fernand Braudel, John le Carré, Gary Snyder, Lionel & Diana Trilling, and Rebecca West.
Please rank candidates with 1, 2, etc. where 1 is your first preference:
[ __ ] Umberto Eco
[ __ ] F.R. Leavis
[ __ ] Leonard & Virginia Woolf
[ __ ] Hold Over Funds
[ __ ] No PreferenceName:
Address:
Email/phone:
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.
Name:
TAFF may 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.
Anyone reproducing this form should substitute their name here: Claude Degler.