If the reports coming from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette are true, maybe the news that we had yesterday about American Idol voting irregularities is meatier than we thought. One fan that says she voted for Kris Allen over 10,000 times.It's also interesting that Idol rules state that power texting, the kind of texting that AT&T reps showed Kris Allen fans how to do, is against the rules. Isn't there some sort of built-in safety net for the voting? How can one fan vote over 10,000 times for one person? Shouldn't it be one person, one vote? Or one household, one vote? Or maybe one phone number, one vote? I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the results. I have no idea. But it does seem that a better system could be in place.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-28-2009 @ 5:37PM
Nornny said...
One fan can vote 10,000 times, but that does not mean those votes counted towards the results. Whether you choose to believe it or not, Idol has said repeatedly in press that the company counting the votes can identify power voters and null their votes.
This is pure assumption, but i do kind of believe them. Assuming DWTS uses the same company as Idol, Steve Wozniak once threw a fit about producer manipulation and vote tampering while he was in the competition. He kind of followed up that with a retraction and apology after producers showed him how votes were counted for DWTS. As a technical guru, I tend to believe his word that these companies know what they're doing in keeping things fair.
But come on, it's just television. :) If a girl wants to vote 10,000 times, more power to her.
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5-28-2009 @ 10:19PM
bc said...
In stories about voting problems in previous seasons of AI, the company counting the votes claimed that AI was unwilling to pay the costs for filtering out invalid votes--whether that is true or not I don't know
5-28-2009 @ 2:47PM
JPN said...
blah blah blah blah blah no matter what, they're not going to change the outcome.
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5-28-2009 @ 3:00PM
Mike said...
I still say they would be better off charging $1 per vote and donating all of the money to their charity of the week. ;)
I bet you would get a far more accurate idea of the viewer numbers.
I watch, but I don't vote as it's still a bit of a PITA. I imagine only about 10-20% of viewers actually vote. Wild Guess there. If you charged for every vote, that would quickly drop to 1% or less.
But the people that voted would care enough to vote for the BEST. :)
5-28-2009 @ 3:00PM
Maria T C G said...
I have said the exact thing. It should be ONE phone in vote, ONE text vote, and ONE computer vote per phone/computer. I know they said they received like 38 million votes for the cotestants and I always wonder if it was only 3 million lunatics voting many many times. I think it would be VERY interesting to see votes that way. Truer outcomes.
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5-28-2009 @ 3:09PM
Phil J Leitch said...
until a few weeks ago I thought AI did have a voting limit. But then I started seeing on numerous comment threads and boards that there were people claiming to vote in the 5000-10000 range and it blew my mind.
I doubt this is the only person that voted that much. I also have to assume that some amount of the people voting for Adam also used suspect voting techniques.
I doubt only Kris voters "cheated".
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6-04-2009 @ 3:38PM
Dan said...
Absolutely, from the blogs and other Idol related things I have read, all the Adam voters were going ballistic and voting like crazy.
GET OVER IT. KRIS WON AND ADAM LOST. There was no conspiracy, Idol wanted an Adam win, they were pushing it ALL SEASON LONG. If it went down to one house-one vote, the winner would always be the one who appeals to the older people, not the lunatic teenaged (girl) fans who vote 250 times for their newest crush.
I guarantee that Adam wouldn't have been in the final two, nor would have David Archuleta, if not for the multiple votes. They drew the most rabid support, but necessarily the most overall support.
5-28-2009 @ 3:11PM
Ryan said...
After (and even during) every single season, people have ad nauseum complained about Idol's voting rules. The fact of the matter is it's flashier and better for the show to exclaim that they got "nearly 100 million votes" or some such number. They will NOT change this. Ever. It's been how many seasons now? Come on guys.
Plus they WANT people to be voting a bazillion times. Like it or not, they are creating a brand and a following for every one of these contestants which will in turn create loyal fans which will in turn create the demand that propels AI winners (and losers) to sell music! It's all about money in the end after all.
Finally, everyone can vote. If a Kris Allen fan wants to vote 10,000, that's not stopping any Adam Lambert fan from doing the exact same thing.
Full disclosure: i voted for Kris Allen maybe 2000 times during the finale. Though I don't even know how to begin calculating or confirming that.
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5-28-2009 @ 3:30PM
Jeff said...
I don't really pay attention, but hasn't the runner-up traditionally wound up with the better post-Idol career?
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5-28-2009 @ 3:46PM
Ryan said...
Nope.
1. Kelly Clarkson > Justin Guarini
2. Ruben Studdard < Clay Aiken
3. Fantasia Barrino > Diana DeGarmo
4. Carrie Underwood > Bo Bice
5. Taylor Hicks < Katharine McPhee (it's all relative)
6. Jordin Sparks > Blake Lewis
7. David Cook = David Archuleta (too new to analyze)
5-28-2009 @ 5:41PM
R P said...
I said last week right after the finale...RE-VOTE! I've never gotten caught up in the AI voting nonsense before but this time it was SO obvious something went REALLY wrong.
Somehow somewhere somebody cheated big time.
I don't think it was Kris Allen himself, he's way too nice.
Maybe it is those ATT guys you mentioned or another big bossy somebody. But one thing is for sure...something really stinks about this years voting results.
Really stinks like the 2000 Florida vote.
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5-28-2009 @ 9:56PM
Idol Solution said...
Agree with R P -- there's something radically wrong with this year's votes. It's not Kris' fault, so to be fair, both Adam and Kris should share a 'Co-Idol' title. But is there anyone big enough who can step up to the plate and make this happen and put this ugly controversy to rest, once and for all?
6-05-2009 @ 11:58AM
Dan said...
Why did something go wrong? Is it because that screaming guy didn't win? Just because your favorite didn't win, doesn't mean it was rigged.
Kris Allen was a better MUSICIAN who didn't feel the need to scream at us or go into a falsetto on every single song. Many people thought that Adam was a hack and simply not that good. Just because you think Adam was great does not mean the country felt that way.
If more people liked Adam, he would have won, the producers were obviously pushing for it!
5-28-2009 @ 6:06PM
Jim said...
I love how voting is suddenly such a big deal because the sexually ambiguous guy lost. How about if we concentrate on limiting acutal voters in Chicago to one vote and actually being alive on election day
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5-28-2009 @ 6:40PM
Leroy said...
Sexual ambiguity is not the issue. The issue is that the boring guy won over the obvious star.
6-02-2009 @ 12:45PM
the_0ne said...
I have to disagree on your "obvious star" assumption. As an entertainer, Adam was the much better candidate. As to singing? The high-pitched scream, like a whining teenager is what blew it for me. Kris was the much more controlled singer.
And I could care less if he bones goats. I wouldn't have voted for him because of the singing. He's actually seems like a really good person and extremely talented. I just couldn't get over the screaming.
My wife loved him btw and thought I was totally wrong about the whining, which in marriage, makes me wrong anyway. ;)
5-28-2009 @ 6:47PM
MaryK said...
30 million people watched the show, but 100 million votes were counted. 'Nuff said.
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5-28-2009 @ 8:23PM
nora said...
Well said Ryan ...
I also voted about 500 times . And most people I know where voting for Kris as well:) It seems that Adam (although talented) was not as apealing as we were led to believe .
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5-29-2009 @ 5:18AM
Phish said...
Firstly, where there is a will there is a way, if adam had as-die-hard fans as kris, he would be the winner. So obviously Kris is more popular, and thats what matters.
If ppl are willing to spend time and money to vote 10,000 times for a contestant, then they have already found their winner. I'm sure these are the same mindless idiots who will buy each and every cd their idol puts out. So its win-win for everyone.
Second, Bob, how much are you being paid by Adam to write this garbage? Or does he pay u in sexual favors?
Although, i agree to the principle of 1 number, 1 vote, this would decrease the money generated by texting and phone charges, so why the heck would idol or at&t do that???
Someone calculated, that if idol drops to only 9 million viewers average, it would still generate more money than all the CSI shows combined and multiplied by 4!!!
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5-29-2009 @ 10:27AM
Sarah said...
Adam fans also power voted, but the media somehow is not interested in reporting that.
http://adam-lambert.org/hardcore-voting-guide/
That is only one of many. One was mysteriously taken off idolforums which is a popular AI website, but I screen captured it.
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3776/glambertscheatsmaller.jpg
Also according to Dial Idol, which is a general sampling of phone call busy signals, Kris Allen was a head of Adam, and that is not text messaging. So Kris was ahead of Adam on Dial Idol, which many people use to predict who will win Idol and who is going home.
http://www.dialidol.com/asp/predictions/predictions.asp
So apparently reporters have not reported all the cheating the Adam fans were doing and that Kris was ahead in the final evening as recorded by Dial Idol.
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