Baseball writer's association announces they'll make Hall of Fame votes public
A long, overdue step toward full transparency
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1 min read
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- On Tuesday, the Baseball Writers Association of America successfully voted (by a 80-9 margin) to pass a new measure that will grant greater transparency to the Hall of Fame voting process.
Heading forward, all Hall of Fame ballots will be disclosed a week after the results are announced. Writers who wish to reveal their ballots earlier and/or as they cast them remain permitted to do so -- this is just the hard deadline.
The BBWAA passed a measure today mandating that all Hall of Fame ballots be public starting in 2018. It remains voluntary for this election
— BBWAA (@officialBBWAA) December 6, 2016
The move to greater transparency is overdue. Regular-season award ballots were already released in whole, and there's no good argument for treating the Hall of Fame votes with greater secrecy. As such, it was a matter of time before similar mandates were passed.
The changes will take effect with next year's voting.
