Voting Closed For 7th Annual Rondo Awards

Here's the latest word from David "taraco" Colton of the Classic Horror Film Board:

"The winners of the 7th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards will be unveiled category by category, as is our tradition, in the CHFB Chatroom, also known as the Blind Hermit's Hut (you can find it here), on Monday at 10 p.m. ET. The winners will then be announced in full at the Rondoaward.com website and in the Rondo folder [at CHFB]. We seem to have a record vote. Thanks one and all!"

An earlier CHFB post by David, dated 3/16/09, expressed some of his observations about the vote-tallying process:

"One of the fun (if exhausting), things about the Rondos is counting all the ballots and seeing the little asides, comments, explanations or even denunciations that people include with their vote. Only the promised anonymity of the voting process keeps me from reprinting many of them.

One guy called me out yesterday for missing a better episode of SUPERNATURAL than the one I had chosen as a nominee: 'Dude! Do you even watch Supernatural...?' it said. (Actually, I don't watch it much, and he was right, the episode he suggested would have been a better choice).

But another ballot arrived today -- #2,161 -- that just made me smile. A simple message, the voter said: 'Thanks for reminding me to vote and for making all this possible. It's nice to know our voices are being heard.'

I liked that on two levels: First off, I do email hundreds of past voters reminding them to vote (AOL kicked me off twice as a spammer in recent years!), and while a few people complain, far more seem to appreciate the reminders.

Secondly, sometimes people question why we leave such important Rondo decisions up to voters rather than forming some kind of committee or panel that would decide the winners, and there's a lot of merit to that argument.

But the email-your-vote Rondo process, as flawed as it may be and as open as it is to campaigning and fun skullduggery, does in the end reflect the fan's point of view, and for that, all we can do is tally up the votes and see what happens. The happy thing is that with few exceptions, in my view the voice of the people has been pretty dead-on over the years.

Anyhow, back to counting. If you haven't voted yet, several races are Ripper-razor thin, so do take a moment if you can. Thanks as always.

And don't hesitate to call me out if I messed up. Dudes.

david"