Voting for the Eisner Awards Is Being Done Over Entirely Following a Security ‘Anomaly’

Just in time for primary season, the organizers of San Diego Comic-Con’s annual Eisner Awards have made the last minute decision to toss out all of the votes after a number of people discovered that the online portal was rather insecure in a way that made it possible for people’s votes to be changed.

In an interview with Newsarama, SDCC chief communications and strategy officer David Glanzer explained that an internal investigation into what exactly caused the voting portal to randomly allow people to access other people’s accounts led to the conclusion that the problem wasn’t widespread. Still, though, the organization is taking the security bug seriously.

“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 said. “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.”

While it’s good that the Eisners are simply being redone out of an effort to ensure that the votes are tallied fairly and reflect the true feelings of the voting body, it’s worth noting that the previous site lacked even the most basic level of encryption, which is the sort of thing one assumed the Eisner Awards’ organizers would see as an important oversight. Hopefully, the new voting platform (which has yet to be officially launched) will be the first step in an overall safer direction for the Eisners.

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