[22] In an article on the Esquire magazine, Jason Sanford, a three-time Hugo finalist, said that “There were concerns that a couple thousand people from China purchased memberships [in the World Science Fiction Society] that year to vote for Chengdu.

[25][27][better source needed] Commenters on the Facebook page where the statistics were released asked Dave McCarty, a veteran of the awards committee, to explain why the four works were found ineligible.

When commenters were unable to find a rule or constitutional provision that sufficed, the exchanges grew heated, with McCarty sometimes questioning or disparaging the intellectual capacity of his interlocutors, behavior he later apologized for.

[28][29][7][30] Additionally, an unknown number of nomination ballots from Chinese voters were rejected because the award administrators considered them to be too similar to a recommendations list published by Science Fiction World, and thus equivalent to a slate.

[6] Based on complaints about the 2023 Hugo award process and official statements made about those complaints, Worldcon Intellectual Property (WIP), the non-profit organization that holds the service marks for the World Science Fiction Society, censured McCarty and two individuals who presided over the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon.