Every year when the nominees are announced, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame focuses a huge amount of the attention it receives, not on the careers and music of the nominated artists, but on its website's "Fan Vote." There's a coordinated effort from the Rock Hall to include it in press releases, have the nominated artists promote it on social media, and the Rock Hall's representatives are sure to bring it up in every interview they give about the ballot. On their website, the first thing you see on their homepage is a large red button that says "VOTE NOW." In fact, the only way to find out who is nominated from RockHall.com is to click through to the Fan Poll.

With all of the attention placed on fans casting their votes, a casual observer would reasonably assume that the poll carries significant weight in the results. In reality, the top five vote getters get added to a single ballot that is submitted with the other 1000+ ballots from the Voting Committee. So the maximum weight of the millions of fan votes is somewhere around 0.1% of the total.

Can that single ballot make a difference between getting inducted or not? In theory, yes. But as the Rock Hall's president Joel Peresman has said many times before, the number of inductees is variable each year, so if the 5th and 6th or 6th and 7th artists are close together, they just induct them both. It's safe to say that if two artists are only one vote apart, they will either both will be inducted, or both be left out. The Rock Hall doesn't use an independent accounting firm to count the votes, and never reveals totals, so there is no way to know the final margins.

There's clearly an asymmetrical relationship between the attention placed on the "Fan Vote" and the impact it has in the results. Since the fan poll started with the 2013 ballot, 54% of artists finishing in the top five get inducted. That correlation has led some to assume that a first place finish guarantees induction, but as we saw in 2020 with the Dave Matthews Band, that isn't the case. That leaves fans disheartened after expending a lot of time into voting daily for up to three months. Last year, the fan vote captured the attention of Nigerians who were excited to see Fela Kuti nominated for the Rock Hall. They organized online and rallied Fela to the top of the poll, before Tina Turner eventually overtook him for first place. When Fela wasn't inducted, fans (and Fela's family members) were dismayed to learn that all of that voting had minimal impact on the results. Feeling burned, Fela fans have not returned to vote this year. He's currently in last place.

The reasons the Rock Hall places so much emphasis on the poll are fairly obvious:

• It brings fans to RockHall.com
• It collects email addresses for marketing purposes (required to vote)
• It provides fans a way to feel like they have some say in the process
• It promotes the Hall of Fame through social media

Rock Hall representatives (like Nominating Committee member Alan Light) have defended the fan poll by suggesting that its impact extends far beyond a single ballot because actual voters look at the results and give additional consideration to fan favorites. But as we have heard over and over from actual voters, because they are limited to selecting five artists, they are forced to vote strategically for artists who they suspect need the most support. By looking at the fan poll, they may assume that those at the top won't need their help, so they cast their votes in a different direction. Whether this happens in practice or not, it is disingenuous for the Rock Hall to emphatically state that the Fan Vote has a beneficial effect beyond the single ballot.

What should the Rock Hall do with the Fan Vote? Here are some ideas:

1. Shorten the duration of the vote to one week. As we have documented over the last nine polls, the top five get locked in after a week and there is no significant change in the results after that. Just once, in 2014, was there a lead change between fifth and sixth towards the end of the poll, and both artists got in anyway. Why the Rock Hall extended the poll from two months to three months last year is inexplicable. They are simply taking advantage of fans' time because they are willing to do whatever they can for their favorite artists.
2. Only permit fans to vote a single time per email address. Why allow fans to vote every day? The fan vote should measure fans' assessment of the artists Hall of Fame worthiness, not fanbase intensity and commitment to gaming the results.
3. Relatedly, fans should be required to vote for five artists. Fans are incentivized to only vote for the single artist they want inducted, and they often do.
4. Allow fans to opt out of Rock Hall marketing emails when registering to vote. It's just the courteous thing to do.
5. Be as clear as possible up front about how much the vote is actually worth (now you have to vote first and then read the fine print).
6. Dial down the emphasis placed on the Fan Vote to make it more in line with its actual importance. Shortening the duration would go a long way to helping, and then the incredible careers of the nominees can rightfully take center stage.

Since the fan poll is only worth a single ballot, many people suggest making it worth much more, to allow fans to have a real impact on the results. Some suggest automatic induction for the Fan Vote winner, or increasing the weight of the Fan Vote up to 10% of all votes. There are significant reasons not to do this:

• The Rock Hall's Fan Vote has a history of being susceptible to bots and voting irregularities. The 2015, 2016, and 2017 polls all had serious issues that put the results into question. The Hall of Fame accepted the results anyway.
• If the fan vote winner is automatically inducted, how would that artist feel about it? Sure, there would be validation from the fans, but the reason the Hall of Fame is special is because inductees are chosen in part by other Hall of Famers. Being accepted and included into the Hall of Fame by your own heroes is the kind career affirmation that you can't get anywhere else. Think about how it would feel to find out that Joni Mitchell, Chuck D, Paul McCartney, or Stevie Wonder voted for you to be in the Hall of Fame versus the feeling of winning a silly online fan poll.
• The Fan Vote has been especially biased against Black artists, who routinely show up towards the bottom of the ballot. Even a first ballot Hall of Famer like Jay-Z finished last. Other than the MC5, minority artists have finished last in the voting every year. Giving a flawed poll even more weight would not be a good thing (and yes, the actual Rock Hall voters have their own biases, but that's not an excuse to make things worse).
• Fan-selected awards are generally not as prestigious as peer-selected ones. Getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is career-defining honor. It shouldn't reduce itself to a People's Choice Award since there are plenty of other measures of fan validation — record sales, touring revenue, chart success, song streams — the Rock Hall shouldn't be one of them.
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