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.
Earlier this summer, Newsarama learned that several returning voters from previous years logged into the voting site and found portions of their personal information changed to unknown, third parties. It is unclear if their voting record was altered in any way.
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."
SDCC plans to send out voting invitations to the voters who already placed their ballots this year. For those with questions about voting eligibility, Glanzer encourages them to contact Eisner Awards administrator Jackie Estrada at jackie@comic-con.org.
A timeline of the new ballots for voters, the voting deadline, and when the awards will be revealed has not been announced. SDCC maintains that the winners will be announced by the end of July.
Here is a complete list of nominees for this year's Eisner Awards.
