Voting on the 2020 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards has been closed abruptly due to what is being called "an anomaly with the site hosting the Eisner's voting" by the organizers, Comic-Con International: San Diego (SDCC).
"We have closed voting and are investigating the situation," SDCC's chief communications and strategy officer David Glanzer told Newsarama. "We will make an announcement as we have additional information. We're sorry for the inconvenience to voters."
SDCC has said the "anomaly" affected the site hosting, but didn't specify if it affected the voting itself.
Voting on the Eisner Awards has taken place this year (as in recent years) on the website EisnerVote.com. The site was developed for SDCC by Melchior Thompson & Associates.
Newsarama has learned that several returning voters from previous years logged into the 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.
The original deadline to vote in this year's Eisners' was to conclude at midnight Pacific time on June 18, however the deadline was extended to June 22 before the voting was closed by SDCC.
In 1990, the Eisner Awards - which were ran at the time independently of, but at, SDCC - were canceled. Following that, SDCC took over the awards with writer/editor/publisher/SDCC volunteer Jackie Estrada hired as administrator.
The nominees for this year's Eisner Awards were announced earlier this month, with plans then to announce the winners sometime in July. Normally the awards are announced in a gala ceremony the Friday evening of the annual SDCC event, however due to the cancelation of the physical event their plans have changed.
