Open Discussion: February ballot and voting

I think the first round of voting for the People's Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame went off wonderfully. We got 61 ballots counted when I was hoping for at least 20, and we ended up with seven very deserving inductees.

If I could do things differently, I would have allowed write-in candidates too (so long as they met the 1960 cut-off date), which would have eliminated any complaints of voters being restricted. While I don't believe anyone not listed on the 25 name ballot could have gotten enough support to get in this time if we counted the votes, I do like the idea of letting people do it because it points us towards who maybe should be a nominee that we might have overlooked for one reason or another.

I would like to make three changes to the process starting in February. The first is to allow for write-ins. As I said, an artist still has to meet the cut-off date (which will be 1961 this time around) for the vote to count, but all qualified votes will be counted. The second is that I'm expanding the list of nominees from 25 to 50. If that sounds a bit drastic, consider how many worthy candidates are out there already, with only more coming in big waves as we get into '62-67. With the write-in option, we're essentially opening it up to any artist who came up by 1961 but I still think a nominee list is essential. There is a certain prestige with "just being nominated", as they say, and I like to be able to give credit to artists and groups who may not ever get elected into our HOF, but still deserve to be honored in some way.

The third change is in the number of candidates we're allowed to vote for. Ten obviously won't make it from here on out. I think that if we kept it at ten, especially considering the expanded nominee list, we'd likely end up with even less inductees this time around. When we look at how many deserving artists there are waiting, I don't think that would do, and several of you have already expressed the same concern here and on the Facebook page. At first I was thinking that a moderate increase to 15 would be appropriate, but when I look at our list for February, I believe we should up it 20. The thing that convinced me we needed it to be at 20 was that when I looked at the list of February nominees I saw that the voting could largely split off into separate stylistic blocks, and one could easily fill a 15 name ballot with performers all from one or a couple of related sub-genres while completely ignoring another. The result would be a split electorate and less inductees. If we have 20 however, I think there's a better chance of most of the ballots showing a broader cross-section of artists.

So, to sum up my long explanation, I'd like to make the following changes:

• Allow write-in votes.
• Increase the nominee list from 25 to 50
• Increase ballot size from 10 to 20.

In the comments below, I'll post my proposed list of nominees. Please do not submit any votes at this time. The list won't be official until I post it again at the end of the month. I want to post it here so some of our diligent rock 'n' roll historians can have a look and let me know if there's anyone obvious I should be including.

Please feel free to comment on the proposed nominee list and/or any of the other changes I'm proposing. I plan on posting the ballot officially on one of the last days of this month.