Hugo News: Final Hugo Ballot?

Feel free to refer back to my article listing the Hugo nominees, but we officially have the final Hugo ballot for 2015.

Probably. 

Maybe.

My last article mentioned the withdrawals of Annie Bellet and Marko Kloos, but at the time of posting the Hugo Awards committee of Sasquan had not yet made a public statement about what would happen next. The withdrawal of a nomination after a previous acceptance and after the final ballot was published had never occurred before. 

Per Mike Glyer at File 770, Sasquan made two significant statements.

First, Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem would replace Lines of Departure on the ballot for Best Novel and "A Single Samurai" would replace "Goodnight Stars" on the ballot for Best Short Story.

Second, no further revisions to the ballot would be made as it is now going to the printer.

So, now we're set, right?  In any other year I would completely agree that we're set, but this is an obviously weird and contentious Hugo season, so we'll see.  I accept that the ballot is fixed and no more revisions will occur.  But what happens if anyone else decides to decline their nomination? Ballot is fixed, and no replacements will be added. But I suspect that would result in an empty slot and any votes cast for the declined work would be nullified.  Everyone else moves up a slot.

Will it happen?  I sure hope not.

But this is a weird year.