Is the Voting on American Idol Flawed?
By KrauseHome
@KrauseHome (36445)
United States
April 19, 2007 1:25pm CST
We all know this yr. like every other yr. on American Idol we continue to see people go home before their time, and some of the Worst idols continue to stay. Sometimes we even choose to Stop watching this show for the rest of the season when someone gets Voted off. Or we begin to think the Show is Flawed, and wonder how it could happen like this.
But did you ever stop to think that maybe it is because the Voting could be fixed somehow? Maybe due to people and Computers, etc. being able to Vote for their favorited more than once or 1000 times if they wanted. Is this really fair? I know in a lot of other things you are allowed 10 Votes period. Why make it an exception when being able to Vote for your Favorite on American Idol? I feel they need to really look into this, and making it more fair for everyone else.
Now I know a lot of you may think I am refering to Sanjaya, which Yes, this does stem from him and the Howard Stern deal, and Vote for the Worst, and all the Votes that came from that, but I also read this, and wonder if they will loose a lot of Fans if this continues to happen. I read about where they say on their Web Site now, American Idol reserves the Rights to remove Votes and that is part of the reason that Sanjaya went home.
Maybe this explains why in yrs. past Numbers are busy even if no one is able to get thru, so contestants like Constantine, and Chris for example go home earlier than you think they should. Maybe the Voting System is more flawed and Rigged than we thought.
I know many are Glad that Sanjaya is gone now, but is it really Fair to think our Votes may actually not be counted for someone as much as we want them too? Who is the one really in Charge of who Wins now?
5 people like this
15 responses
@CaroleeKaufold (1853)
• United States
19 Apr 07
Yes I think it is. But I don't know what else they can do.
1 person likes this
@KrauseHome (36445)
• United States
10 May 07
Well, until they can somehow Stop all of the VoteForTheWorst, etc. sites, I do not really think there is much else that they can do.
@Polly1 (12644)
• United States
19 Apr 07
In the end America gets it right. I am glad that Sanjaya finally got voted off. He does have talent, but the ones who are left have more talent. Its geting down to the wire now. I feel so sorry for them when they do ge voted off, they do have talent or they would not have gotten this far.
1 person likes this
@KrauseHome (36445)
• United States
27 Apr 07
This is an excellent comment and thought. What is really exciting, is when they are able to hit it Big like some of the runner ups have been able to do. That to me proves they are Great, and no one should have ever under rated them.
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
20 Apr 07
I think the people's vote is counted but I think that even though it may come up in polls, etc. that someone is a favorite doesn't mean they will win the public vote because a lot of people simply do not vote. No "call in" voting method is perfect by any means but I do think it serves the purpose it was meant for, a "popularity" vote for those who are completely into Idol. I surely wouldn't want it to be the way we vote for president or something (although that seems to be pretty flawed too if you ask me) but I think it serves its purpose well enough and speaks for those who are die hard fans. Many simply enjoy the show but are not so into it they would call in.
@oldboy46 (2129)
• Australia
20 Apr 07
There has been something similar happening here in australia ... one of the problems could be the same here as in America. Different time zones can and do affect votes .. it has been shown that it does here anyway. Another thing is that some people will vote based not on talent ... but on looks ... there was one person here who was a very good singer .. good looking young man too. He was asked numerous times if he was gay .. always denied it.
Finally he has come out and admitted that he is in a relationship with another young male .. but had been told not to admit it while he was a contestant as it could affect his votes ... wrong on all accounts I thought .. but then it came out that all the young girls were voting for him. Okay he is a good singer .. but his good looks were also something that increased his votes.
There is no limit on the number of times a person can vote here in Australia .. it is simply a matter of dialling a number and they keying in the code. Not too hard at all .. hell my daughter was staying with us a couple of years ago when one of these shows was on ... and we got a shock when the phone bill came in. Got it in one .. not a free call to vote here in Australia but costs 55 cents per call and she made literally dozens of calls each day ... all unknown to us of course. So it can be that this sort of thing does happen here in Australia ... and probably every other country in the world as well.
This does not mean it is wrong or illegal ... but my view is that each person should only be able to vote once or maybe a maximum number of times ... in case theee is more than one person using the same telephone number to case their vote.
@howard96h (11640)
• New York, New York
19 Apr 07
I do not think the votes are flawed, if they were then Sanjaya would have been sent home long ago. He should have been sent home way before Gina Glockson. ATT monitors the calls since they are going thorugh an ATT (866 Toll Free) number and even if American Idol was lying about the number of votes each person gets, ATT knows how many votes really came in for each contestant and I'm sure they would not allow this to happen since they are a sponser and I'm sure someone is monitoring the show's results. Sanjaya had a lot of sympathy votes, people from India voting, young teen girls voting and Howard Stern making lots of comments about him too. They are looking for the best singer and he just was not good enough and finally the people voted correctly.
1 person likes this
@KrauseHome (36445)
• United States
20 Apr 07
Well, who knows if it is or not. Only time will tell if the Good singers will last enough to Win on there.
1 person likes this
@wachit14 (3595)
• United States
19 Apr 07
The idea that this contest is somehow fixed has been raised previously on other blogs and websites. However, I don't believe it to be true. I really believe that the voting is as genuine as possible, but with flaws that are not intentional which means that the voting is probably off week to week for one reason or another. Had it been any other way, Sanjaya would have been voted off weeks ago. His popularity was spurred, not by the egging on of Howard Stern, but by many young girls who have a serious crush on this less than talented teenie bopper.
1 person likes this
@KrauseHome (36445)
• United States
21 Apr 07
Well, I have read on another Writing type site that if you go read the Disclaimers now on the American Idol site, that is where you will read some about Votes for Sanjaya, etc. So I guess you have to decipher it from there?
@kgwat70 (13387)
• United States
20 Apr 07
The voting is flawed big time as they really do no need to make changes with their system in order for the better person to win this contest. People out there are messing up the contest by voting for the worst singers or voting for the best looking. I think they need to limit the calls to one per phone and the judges should decide who leaves the show. The fans should not be the ones to choose who leaves. There were quite a few good singers that should have been around longer. The other shows have good voting and decision methods but not American Idol.
1 person likes this
@laura1167 (149)
• United States
20 Apr 07
I have always thought that there were flaws in the voting system. I don't know if it's fixed but I've thought so at times. Especially last year when Chris Daughtry was sent home. But it didn't matter, he's on the radio all of the time and he's doing great. Taylor who? ;)
1 person likes this
@tammyr (5945)
• Etowah, Tennessee
20 Apr 07
Last year I voted the entire 2 hours for Chris. I voted sometimes 30 times a night. (I know some think it is wrong, but they have said you can do this.)
The week that Chris Daughtrey was voted off I could not get through. I only got 1 or 2 votes in. If he was the lowest that week, why couldn't I get through? I think they do it with the number of lines available. They will give the one they want gone less lines so there is less chance to get through. This is just my opinion, but this year watching Sanjaya get through when others that were better went home, I believe it even more.
@kathy77 (7485)
• Australia
20 Apr 07
Yes well this is very true that there are a lot of people that go home far too early on American Idol, and a lot of times I do not even watch it as it makes me so mad when they take off people that I really thought were great and had the chance to win. I do believe that the voting is flawed in American Idol, I think that the judges are the ones that really determined this and they just want people to phone in to make a profit for the phone companies and must be getting some part of the money from this so I never phone any of these kind of shows any more.
@lloydanthony111 (4698)
• United States
22 Apr 07
I actually believe the votes balance out. Sure there are many people like Howard Stern encouraging people to vote for Sanjaya, but there are equally as many Sanjaya fans placing multiple votes for him.
Let's not give the trouble makers like Stern more credit than they deserve.
In the end, the right Idol will prevail.
Lloyd
@revdauphinee (5703)
• United States
20 Apr 07
areyou aware thereis a movement dedicated to voting for the worst on Ammerican idol in order to dump the show they even have a web site called vote for the worst !http://www.votefortheworst.com/
@stefan_diego (555)
• Canada
20 Apr 07
I know how you feel but just because whoever you think should stay or who really is good and everything can stay, sometimes contestants with better charisma would stay longer than the better singers because they have more followers. Don't get me wrong sometimes I feel dissappointed too but then i'm not the judge. I even saw one episode where paula was surprised that a contestant who is way better than the other has to go but that's the way it is. There's nothing you can do if your pick has lesser odds. In Sanjaya's case, maybe most of the Indian community is voting for him so his staying power is quite strong back from the Top10. But as some of the contestants go home, their followers don't stop voting, they became followers of contestants left in the contest hence, the contestants left have more votes now. The fewer the contestants, the more votes they get now.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
21 Apr 07
Well the voting should be capped. I don't vote, because my vote is meaningless. One person's vote only means something if that person spends two hours hitting redial. American Idol will never change this because it allows them to pretend they are watched by 38 million people.
Those 38 million votes are coming from people who are placing over 400 phone calls each over a 2 hour period. They probably only have about a hundred thousand people watching, but they love to make ignorant statements like "More people voted tonight then in any presidential race EVER!"
@cabergren (1181)
• United States
20 Apr 07
I definitely agree that the voting system has its major flaws. But I also agree that the Howard Stern Vote for the Worst did contribute to Sanjaya staying on way too long. I had heard that Simon was very upset about it and was threatening to leave the show if he stayed on any longer. I do think they need to look into the voting system. There is definitely something wrong with it. And I was one of those people who was considering not finishing watching if Sanjaya was still on. I was very glad that he was voted off. Now I will continue to watch the rest of the show.
