I move that the Derringer process take place in January-March of each year to simplify the cutoff date for member participation, to allow a full month exclusively for Derringer judging, and to increase the SMFS's opportunities to publish the Derringer results.
All Derringer submissions will be taken January 1 through January 31. In addition to receiving submissions, the Coordinator may begin distributing stories to the Judges, and Judges may submit scores to the Coordinator during this period if they wish.
February 1 through February 28/29 is reserved for the bulk of correspondence between the Judges and Coordinator. The Coordinator will have distributed all Derringer submissions to the Judges by February 1. The Coordinator may also draft new judges during this period if any existing judge becomes unresponsive or unable to judge. By February 28/29, the judges must have scored all submissions, and the Coordinator must have reported all scores and final averages back to the Judges, thereby determining the five finalists in each length category.
The group vote on the finalists will take place March 1 through March 30 on the Derringer Voting Group. The Voting Group will be used to store the finalist stories for the duration of the voting period and no longer. The Voting Group will also be used to verify that all voters have valid SMFS memberships dating back to at least one day before the start of the Derringer process (i.e. December 31 of the previous year).
The polls will close end-of-day March 30, but the results will not be official until the Coordinator officially announces them on March 31. The Coordinator or President will re-post this announcement to the SMFS blog, Finally, the President, as the SMFS's chief public representative, will send the announcement to as many publications related to our field as possible.
Vote here.