by Chris Dixon

Created on: April 16, 2009

Since the first season of American Idol there have been controversies surrounding the integrity of the voting system. When you tune in to American Idol you watch amateurs sing and then they are subsequently critiqued by celebrity judges and you are advised to call in and vote for the idol of your choice after a short recap of the performances. The host gives a different toll free 800 number for each contestant and you have a two hour window after the show ends to call in and vote. This is where the first controversy begins. Many think that you should be limited on the number of times you can call in and vote. I vote one time for whoevers performance I think is the best. My niece calls 3000 times for whoever she likes best. I cannot compete with that. She doesn't vote for who performs the best, she picks whoever is the cutest. I told her thats not what this show is about, but you cant argue with a teenager. The first controversy lies in the fact that you can call as often as you like, and it seems there should be some sort of limit on the number of times you can call in from each phone number.

Another voting controversy occured when it was suggested that a contestant from Hawaii had a longer window for people to call in and vote than other parts of the country. It was also suggested the whole state was voting for her because Simon, one of the judges, had been cruel. He is a judge, so it is his job to be critical. However, many times people will vote for someone just BECAUSE Simon has hurt their feelings. This would seem to go against the premise of the show, but is not so controversial in and of itself. But if you live on one side of the country and your mom lives on the other, seperated by a few hours and time zones - there was nothing to stop her from telling you what the phone number is to vote for favorite idol hours before you are supposed to be voting. This is what some suggested happened with a few of the contestants, but it was never proved.

One of the shows most controversial finales was the season of Aiken vs Studdard. Rueben Studdard won the competition but Clay Aiken had received the most votes every single week prior to that week, since the wild-card round. On the night of the finale it is estimated more than 230 million calls were dropped by AT&T because the phone lines were over loaded and could not handle the calls! Not the first or last time this has happened, but in this particular case it was over 30% of the market and technically should have made the results invalid. In the final count Rueben Studdard won the final by as few as 130 thousand votes, there was never a recount or re-vote.

Perhaps the biggest voting controversy was caused by the inception of www.votefortheworst.com. A website that suggests you vote for the worst contestant. This site was designed for the sole purpose of disrupting the voting process of American Idol. You are told to vote for who you think is the best, yet the producers put these horrible people through just to make fun of them. In a sense it is fitting because the producers have left themselves open to this, by not limiting the number of votes a person can make. If one was limited to only voting once or even a few times from each phone number this website would have no effect. This site first gained popularity around the time of William Hung. But the biggest controversy was when Sanjaya was kept in for weeks and weeks, while extremely talented people were voted off before him. For season 8 votefortheworst is working hard to keep a contestant named 'Lil Rounds' in, but you really have to wonder how she got in the top 10 in the first place! Then again, maybe people are just voting for her because they like her name!

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