Eisner Award voting website 'anomaly' leads to complete re-vote

(Image credit: Comic-Con International: San Diego)

Update: The new ballots for the 2020 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards have now been issued to eligible voters, following our original story below. The deadline for voters to submit their completed ballots is June 30, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.

Original story as follows...

Comic-Con International: San Diego (SDCC) has decided to toss all of the ballots cast so far in this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, and will be re-opening voting - under a new website platform - to ensure accurate and untampered results.

On June 18 just hours before the scheduled deadline for votes, SDCC closed the voting website due to "an anomaly with the site hosting"according to the con's chief communications and strategy officer David Glanzer. Glanzer said an investigation was underway to understand the full scope of the situation.

Glanzer has informed Newsarama that as of June 24, that investigation has concluded and SDCC has a plan going forward to ensure accurate voting in this year's Eisner Awards.

"As a result of our investigation into the recently reported issues with the Eisner voting website, it appears this was not a malicious attempt but an error in the platform itself," Glanzer told Newsarama. "While our examination of the records leads us to believe the problem is small and we have no direct evidence that any votes have been altered, out of an abundance of caution and care we have decided to re-run the vote with a current and secure voting platform."

Here is a complete list of nominees for this year's Eisner Awards.

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)