by John Atchison

Created on: April 28, 2009

"And your bottom three are: Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia Barrino, and Latoya London". With those words uttered by Ryan Seacrest on an episode of year three of American Idol, yet another voting controversy had arisen for the hit television reality show, American Idol. Were the producers openly upset, and filled with worry about how this was going to be taken. Heck no! Shows like American Idol thrive on this type of publicity. As someone once said "Any publicity is good publicity", and no truer words could be spoken in this case. So, let us take a moment now and review some of the voting controversies that have taken place on one of America's favorite shows.

Well, we might as well start with one of the bigger ones that took place on the show, the dissing of the "Three Divas". Anyone that watched the third season of American Idol knew that the three voices of Hudson, Barrino, and Latoya London were perhaps the class of the field for that year. For part of that season, these three were battling out to see which one of the three would make it to the finals and be the next idol. Funny thing happen though on the way to that outcome. In one of the early weeks of the competition, with guest judge Sir Elton John in attendance, these three names were announced as the bottom three. All the judges, including Elton John, were aghast at this outcome. In the end, in one of the great miscarriages of justice, the now Grammy and Oscar winning singer Hudson, was shown the door. Idol tried to play it off at first as a classical example of people not voting each week for their favorite. However, Sir Elton John was so incensed by the outcome that he called a press conference and announced this result as incredibly racist voting on the part of the public. With London disappearing not shortly there after, people had to wonder if he was not right in what he was saying.

How about the controversy having to do with the combination of Howard Stern, votefortheworst.com, and Sanjaya Malakar. This seems like an unusual grouping of folks, doesn't it? Well that is what everyone else thought as well. Here was this contestant, Sanjaya, who was as colorful a personality as ever has been on idol, but his talent was not what you would consider top 12 material, kept on advancing through each successive week, making it through 6 elimination rounds. Controversy was now abounding. How could someone whose musical talent was limited, and who was being bashed week after week by the judges, especially Simon,

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