In another writers' forum Jason Sanford of StorySouth posted this message:

The public voting for the Million Writers Award is over. Due to various problems with people cheating on the votes, and due to personal attacks on myself and the writers in the top ten (which distracts from the goal of promoting online fiction), I am ending the public voting.

As explained in the rules for the award, there are a number of judges who helped select the notable stories. I will ask these judges to vote on their favorite story. The story that receives the most votes from the judges will be named the winner. If no story receives a majority of votes in the first round of voting by the judges, the stories with the top votes will be selected for a second round of voting. The winner will be announced on April 1.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the voting. I regret that the abuse of the system by a few individuals forced me to take this action.

Jason Sanford
editor
storySouth