Hugo stats from a decade ago

Happened to come across a few of the stats for the 1996 Hugos -- the ones given ten years ago, at the exact same venue (the Anaheim Convention Center) as this year's Hugos; the ones ten years ago were given at L.A. Con III.

Back then, the nominees were Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age (which won), my The Terminal Experiment, Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships, David Brin's Brightness Reef, and Connie Willis's Remake. But what's interesting is that ten years ago, 734 ballots were cast in the best-novel category, and this year only 567 ballots were cast -- that's close to a 23% reduction, which is yet another sign of the declining readership of SF, and the shrinking of fandom, I suppose.

On the other hand, back in 1996, it took just 27 nominations to make the final ballot: (Stephenson had 76, I had 58, Baxter had 47, Brin had 28, and Willis had 27), whereas this year it took 45 (Stross had 90, Wilson had 76, Martin had 47, MacLeod had 46, and Scalzi had 45.)