American Idol voting
the VoteFair way
The poll here correctly identifies the most-popular and least-popular contestants. How? It uses all your preferences — and all the preferences of other voters — in VoteFair ranking calculations. (For reasons explained, it does not predict who will win.)
(Also on this page: cross-season poll through season 9, season 9 poll (with its crazy results), cross-season poll through season 8, season 8 poll (and why text messaging tipped the balance), cross-season poll through season 7, season 7 summary, cross-season poll through season 6, season 6 summary, season 5 summary, earlier cross-season polls, and Jennifer Hudson's early elimination)
Cross-season poll, Seasons 1 through 9 |
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Cross-season poll, Seasons 1 through 9
The latest cross-season poll is now open! Let's find out how this season's contestants compare to the most popular contestants from earlier seasons.
Season 9 commentary
Congratulations Lee DeWyze!
Finale commentary
As in last year's finale, text-message votes probably tipped the balance. (For reasons explained below, the voice phone lines were saturated, which means those numbers were not significantly different between Crystal and Lee.) As explained below, whichever singer has wealthier fans has an advantage, because those fans can afford to cast more text-message votes.
Lee had an advantage because of his appeal to girls and young women (who tend to be the biggest intended demographic), and because Crystal's tattoos and single-mother-status offend conservative families (who vote in large numbers for religious & political reasons). And as stated here the week before the finale: "The greater enthusiasm/dedication of fans of Lee DeWyze may cause him to win."
Special Tip for the Finale's Official Voting!
Here's the voting tip: While your favorite contestant's lines are busy, use a land line to call the other contestant's line, and when you get through, do not hang up. Instead, wait until you get disconnected! For example, if you prefer Crystal Bowersox, call one of the numbers for Lee DeWyze and stay connected when you finally get through, and wait to get disconnected.
Here's why it's fair, how it works, and some clarifications:
- During the time you are hogging a voice line of the contestant you like less, you are blocking that contestant's fans from reaching that (virtual) voting destination. Fewer votes getting through means fewer votes for the competition.
- Without this strategic voting, both contestants will get about the same number of votes on their voice lines—because each voice line has the same capacity limit. This equal-capacity problem is explained below in the saturated voice lines section.
- This hog-the-competition's-line voting strategy is available to the fans of both contestants, so it's not biased in favor of either Crystal or Lee. Whichever contestant has more-dedicated, better-networked fans will get the bigger advantage from using this voting strategy.
- It only works if you are using a land line. If you are using a cell phone, do not use this strategy, because it is more likely to hurt your favorite (for reasons explained below).
- The strategy does not work for text-message voting! It's only for phone voting from land lines.
- Don't forget to sometimes—especially after the first hour—check all the phone lines for your favorite contestant. If they aren't busy (that is, if you are often getting through), then keep those lines busy (instead of blocking the competitor's line).
- When you call to vote for your favorite, hang up as soon as you know you got through. Don't block other people from getting through to your favorite. (The tendency for fans to listen to their favorite's voice may account for why, this year, the show didn't use the singer's voice to answer the line.)
- If you normally use text messaging to cast your votes, stick with text-message voting! That's because text-message votes do not have any significant bandwidth/capacity limits, so every text-message vote counts. (In contrast, each time you dial a voice line, it only counts if you get through.)
- Yes, this approach is actually fair. Whichever contestant has more fans using this strategy, will get more voice votes compared to the other contestant.
- The show doesn't use fair voting methods, so this strategy actually improves the fairness.
- Finally, this strategy only works in the finale, where there are just two choices, and where there are so many people calling on the voice lines. (Earlier in the season the voice lines are not continuously saturated, and the results are unpredictable if there are more than two choices.)
Power text-message voting
Based on evidence from previous results, lots of people are doing power texting. Is power text-message voting fair? No. Especially because it gives an unfair advantage to wealthier people who are better able to afford text messaging (and unlimited text-messaging plans). See below (How to replace the judges' save with a voter-based save) for how this problem can be solved.
Text-messaging traffic has no noticeable bandwidth limitations (how many text messages can be handled per minute), and that traffic cannot be measured the way busy signals on land lines can measure phone-vote counts. So until the results are revealed, we don't know which contestants are getting high volumes of text-message votes. In contrast, as explained below, and as measured using busy signals, the voice-line vote counts are not meaningfully different. The result is the increased importance of "power" voting with text messages. The show has not yet figured out how to deal with this bias. (For perspective, remember that during season 2, when Ruben Studdard won instead of Clay Aiken, vote counts were skewed because of votes dialed from computer modems.)
Saturated voice lines
The official vote counts on the voice-based phone lines are about the same for each contestant. You can think of it this way: if an amusement park has two popular rides, and each ride handles 100 people per minute, the ride with the longer waiting line does not serve any more rides than the one with the shorter waiting line. Until the official vote-counters measure the diversity of voters getting through—which is like taking into acount how many repeat riders are in each line at the amusement park—there will be yet more surprise eliminations.
Outrunning a bear
The American Idol show makes the common mistake of thinking that the choice with the fewest votes is least popular. It's not unlike the joke about outrunning a bear: you don't have to be the fastest runner, you just have to run faster than the slowest person. This means the fans of the least-popular contestant just need to provide slightly more votes than the fans of the next-to-last contestant. When there are more contestants (say, more than four or five), that's easier to do.
The usual voting tip: use a land line
It's useful to consider that each official vote from a land line is worth, let's say, two official votes from a cell phone. Why? Because during a cell-phone call you are blocking other voters who are trying to get a dial tone from the same cell-phone tower. And the people you are blocking are (statistically) likely to be voting for the same contestant. (Don't take the two-to-one ratio number too literally; it's just a way to convey the importance of using a land-line phone.) If you use a phone that goes through a cable-TV service, that's not a land-line phone; cable-based phones are also bottlenecked, in this case by cable-TV equipment.
Top 3 results
The elimination of Casey James was not a surprise.
Top 4 results
The elimination of Michael Lynche was not a surprise.
Top 5 results
How could Siobhan Magnus—who is the most popular contestant in this past week's VoteFair poll—get eliminated this early? (And how could almost-least-popular Aaron Kelly end up in the top three instead of the bottom three?) Here are the special reasons that apply this week:
- The Facebook fan page for Siobhan Magnus contained Aaron Kelly's official-voting phone numbers. (Wikipedia has a link to that historic page.) The wrong text-message number would not be noticed. And this year, the wrong voice-phone number was not noticed because the singers' voices were not used to answer the calls. ["Keeping it real": A previous comment here was mistaken because I was out dancing on voting nights, so I didn't know about this change.] This also explains why Aaron Kelly was not in the bottom three.
- This week's “country-music” orientation attracted country-music fans who voted for, and probably told their friends to vote for, Aaron Kelly, who is fond of singing country music. This surge of heavy voting by country-music fans has been a problem in the past; that's why the show no longer calls it country-music week, and presumably why they delay it for when there are fewer contestants (so that non-country-music fans aren't doing as much vote-splitting). But putting Shania Twain and her songs on the show had the same effect.
Top 6 results
Finally, long overdue, Tim Urban was eliminated. See below (Tim Urban's delayed elimination) for the voting-based reasons he stayed on the show for so long.
Top 7 results
This week's double elimination of Andrew Garcia and Katie Stevens was not a surprise regarding Andrew Garcia and was only a slight surprise regarding Katie Stevens. Almost no one was safe, so there wasn't as much strategic voting (because that requires knowing how others will be voting), and that eliminates one source of unpredictable results. As previously explained, Katie Stevens was vulnerable because voters who prefer a female winner are heavily voting for the dramatically better female singers, namely Crystal Bowersox and Siobhan Magnus. (In contrast, the gap between the worst and best male singers is not as large.)
How to replace the judges' save with a voter-based save
The voters, not the judges, should be the ones who save a contestant from an early elimination. How can this be done? It is only possible if 1-2-3 preference information is collected from at least some of the voters.
Taking into account the objectives of the American Idol show, the best approach might be to allow text-message voters to submit a 1-2-3 ballot once from each cell-phone number. For example, texting “4 1 2” to a special (cell-phone) number can indicate contestant 4 as the voter's first choice, contestant 1 as the voter's second choice, contestant 2 as the third choice, and (in this example) the other contestants would be tied as least-preferred.
These ballots would be counted to produce “pairwise counts,” of the kind shown in each VoteFair-results page. If these pairwise counts reveal that the contestant with the fewest traditional (first-choice-only) “votes” is actually preferred (based on the pairwise counts) over the second-from-the-bottom contestant and the third-from-the-bottom contestant (and possibly the fourth-from-the-bottom contestant, depending on how many contestants are left), then that contestant would be saved automatically (without the involvement of the judges) and the contestant with the next-fewest (traditional) “votes” would be eliminated instead.
(For advanced readers of this commentary, an even more important consideration would be to protect the second-most-representative contestant, who is the contestant who would be most popular if the voters who support the most popular contestant have their influence reduced by an appropriate amount.)
AT&T might initially object to running software that supports 1-2-3 voting and pairwise counting for American Idol use—until they realize they can make lots of money selling the same service to many customers (especially collaborative businesses making wiser business decisions in situations that involve more than two choices).
Why Michael Lynche got the fewest first-choice votes
The surprise of Michael Lynche getting the fewest ‘votes’ serves as yet another example that the contestant with the fewest votes is not necessarily the least popular. For readers following this commentary, his last-position vote count was not a complete surprise because an earlier commentary here pointed out that earlier VoteFair poll results in the Top-10 week (based on rankings from 801 voters) suggested that Michael Lynche was a likely surprise elimination. (In those results, notice his short traditional-vote count.) Although he didn't end up in the bottom three that week, vote-splitting easily explains why he got the fewest first-choice votes this week, even though he is about fifth (out of nine) in popularity.
The rule of the “judges save” was created to compensate for times when an obviously popular singer ends up with the fewest votes. What the show's producers, and the official vote counters (who insist their counting is “fairer than fair”) still fail to recognize is that the contestant with the fewest first-choice votes is not necessarily the least popular.
Michael Lynche, Katie Stevens, Aaron Kelly, Andrew Garcia, and Tim Urban are close to one another in first-choice popularity, so the order in which they are eliminated is unpredictable, which makes the elimination sequence seem crazy.
Currently the big gender imbalance—namely 6 males and 3 females—makes the elimination of a male more likely. That's why this week's bottom three were males. If Katie Stevens, as the least-popular female, had a bad performance, that would have interrupted this bias.
Was it a mistake to use the “judges save” on Michael Lynche? No, because the show's ultimate goal is to attract attention for the commercials, and the drama of the “judges save” increased the drama. Also, this increases the drama for the following week when two contestants are eliminated. Plus, the “judges save” is no longer available to compensate for unfair results.
Runoff voting isn't fair if it assumes the fewest first-choice votes indicates the lowest popularity
The same vote-counting mistake being made on American Idol voting is creeping into government elections in places like San Francisco (CA), Burlington (VT), and Aspen (CO) where a voting method named “instant runoff voting” (abbreviated IRV) is used. The IRV method is based on the mistaken belief that the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is the least popular. The method has produced clearly unfair results, especially in Burlington and Aspen, so the method has been repealed in those places. The instant-runoff-voting method correctly uses 1-2-3 ballots, but it also uses an unfair counting method based on thinking that the choice with the fewest votes is least popular. It's crazy for American Idol to use the same unfair counting method that also fails to produce fair results in government elections.
Tim Urban's delayed elimination
Nearly everyone is asking: “Why is Tim Urban still in the competition?” Here's why:
- Apparently he is getting votes from well-networked (white) Christian church groups. (To be balanced about this, Michael Lynche is probably getting support from African-American Christian church groups.) This isn't something new; it's been going on for the past few seasons, and became obvious in last season's finale.
- Very likely, many phone votes (including those mentioned above) are coming from people who do not watch the show. Notice that any viewer can email, text, or call friends/church-members/classmates/etc. telling them when to start calling and which phone number to call. Apparently this is more common among well-networked older folks, and less common among younger folks.
- When younger folks are well-networked, they disagree about who to vote for, so their votes are split among several different contestants. As explained in Wikipedia's vote-splitting article, a large group that concentrates their votes on a single contestant can outvote a collectively larger group that splits its votes. This is why 1-2-3 ballots (instead of single-mark ballots) are essential to fair voting results (and should be allowed as part of American Idol's text-message voting). This is why money has so much influence in politics; people with money focus, instead of split, their financial support.
- Younger voters tend to use cell phones (and cable-based phones) instead of land lines. This means that younger voters are blocking one another at cell-phone towers (and cable-TV facilities) while older voters are not getting as many busy signals because they use land lines.
- Finally, (prior to this commentary being posted) Tim Urban, along with Crystal Bowersox, Casey James, and Michael Lynche, were less self-conscious and less afraid compared to the other, less-popular singers. This widespread excessive stagefright/self-consciousness/etc. was clearly evident in this year's disappointing Top-24 week, and continued until the Top 9 performances. As stated here prior to the Top 9 performances, perhaps someone behind the scenes was getting angry at them when they made mistakes, or perhaps the judges accidentally chose singers who are afraid of big audiences, or perhaps the contestants needed (and then recently got?) more coaching in how to focus on their love of music to take their mind off the cameras, the microphone, the judges, and (unintentionally) distracting members of the audience. Regardless of the reason, the less-popular singers were crippling their performances because of their self-conscious thinking. In contrast, Tim Urban knows he is on borrowed time, and he's choosing to have fun while he's there, so (comparatively) he was more relaxed and less self-conscious than the others who are bumping along at the bottom.
Clarification: Poll results are not Tuesday-night specific
The poll results here are not Tuesday-night specific. In other words, the predictions here are not updated after each Tuesday-night performance, so the predictions become inaccurate if singers do significantly better or worse than usual. In particular, Andrew Garcia had a much-better-than-usual performance in the Top 10 week, so the prediction here that he was most likely to be eliminated became out-of-date. Also keep in mind that this VoteFair poll includes many votes from earlier in the week (including right after the elimination).
Top 9 results
Didi Benami was a surprise elimination this week. To see why this surprise happened, look at the Top 10 poll results and look at the lengths of the blue bars in the “Traditional vote count (for comparison)” column of the VoteFair results page. The less-popular singers, namely Michael Lynche, Aaron Kelly, Didi Benami, Katie Stevens, Andrew Garcia, and Tim Urban are all bumping along at the bottom in terms of first-choice votes. This means that a small difference in performance is all it took to determine who was eliminated.
If voters were allowed to indicate a second choice, third choice, and so on, the elimination sequence would not be so unpredictable.
Top 10 results
Finally Paige Miles was eliminated. As fewer choices remain, it is more difficult for a group of people to keep someone from having the fewest first-choice votes. Of course her awful singing this week helped to tip the balance.
Top 11 results
The loss of Lacey Brown is a slight surprise. Yet this is the first week of voting for the males and females together, so AI voters are processing new information. The results—only one male in the bottom three—indicates that voting for the female singers is concentrated on the top few females, especially Siobhan Magnus and Crystal Bowersox. That leaves the less-popular females most vulnerable.
It was no surprise that Paige Miles and Tim Urban were in the bottom three because they are the least popular.
Top 12 results
As predicted here last week (see below), Lilly Scott and Katelyn Epperly were at risk of a possible early “surprise” elimination. Why? To repeat the point below, “These singers are liked by lots of people, but they are not the first choice of enough voters—compared to some of the less-overall-popular singers.” Of course inconsistent performances and poor song choices also were involved, yet these two were still more popular than several other female singers.
Among the male singers, Alex Lambert was a surprise elimination. To repeat the important point, “He is liked by lots of people, but he is not the first choice of enough voters.”
When comparing VoteFair ranking results to “plurality” results (which the show uses), consider that VoteFair ranking indicates how much a singer's concerts will be appreciated and how often their recordings will be played and requested. In contrast, plurality ranking indicates how many music recordings and concert tickets the singer will sell—without regard for whether the recordings are played more than once, and whether the concert is disappointing. Naturally the latter is what the show's music-industry producers care about. In politics, the former is more important—for fair representation.
Top 16 week
Based on recent VoteFair results, it looks like each of these singers is at risk of a possible early “surprise” elimination next week:
- Lilly Scott
- Katelyn Epperly
- Andrew Garcia
- Michael Lynche
These singers are liked by lots of people, but they are not the first choice of enough voters (compared to some of the less-overall-popular singers).
Top 20 week
There were no big surprises this week. Nervousness is still hurting some singers (until they get eliminated, ironically).
Top 24 week
The first week's results were surprising because the vocal performances were so weak that personality and appearances took on added importance. Also, some people were probably voting strategically (rather than sincerely), and that produces unexpected results if their assumptions are incorrect regarding how others will be voting.
Season 9 summary table
The asterisks (*) below indicate the early eliminations of Lilly Scott, Alex Lambert, Katelyn Epperly, Lacey Brown, Didi Benami, Katie Stevens, and Siobhan Magnus, the almost-elimination-and-saving of Michael Lynche, and the delayed eliminations of Paige Miles and Tim Urban.
| Photo | Contestant | Top 24 | Top 20 | Top 16 | Top 12 | Top 11 | Top 10 | Top 9 First Time |
Top 9 Second Time |
Top 7 | Top 6 | Top 5 | Top 4 | Top 3 | Top 2 | Winner |
 | Lee DeWyze | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Winner |
 | Crystal Bowersox | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Runner-up |
 | Casey James | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Out | -- |
 | Michael Lynche | 5 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5* Saved | 6 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 4 | Out | -- | -- |
 | Aaron Kelly | 4 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | Out | -- | -- | -- |
 | Siobhan Magnus | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1* | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Tim Urban | 12 | 8 | 7* | 12* | 9* | 10* | 9* | 8* | 7 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Katie Stevens | 5 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 5* | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Andrew Garcia | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 9 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Didi Benami | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 7* | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Paige Miles | 11 | 8 | 8* | 11* | 11 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Lacey Brown | 10 | 9 | 6 | 8* | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Lilly Scott | 3 | 3 | 3* | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Alex Lambert | 8 | 4 | 3* | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Katelyn Epperly | 6 | 5 | 5* | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Todrick Hall | 7 | 7 | 8 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Michelle Delamor | 7 | 7 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | John Park | 10 | 9 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Jermaine Sellers | 11 | 10 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Haeley Vaughn | 12 | 10 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Tyler Grady | 6 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Janell Wheeler | 8 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Ashley Rodriguez | 9 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
 | Joe Muņoz | 9 | Out | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
Cross-season poll for seasons 1 through 8
The results of this cross-season poll (after removing duplicates) reveal that fans of Clay Aiken and David Archuleta are well-networked and telling one another to vote here. Each season, Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood are at or near the top because they are popular among all the people who vote here, even though they don't get as many first-choice votes.
Adam Lambert appears to be less popular, but the VoteFair representative ranking results reveal that he would be the most popular if the ballots from Clay Aiken fans were ignored. This also means that most Clay Aiken fans rank Adam Lambert insincerely low.
Overall, notice that this kind of comparison—where every ballot counts, and every voter ranks all the candidates—reveals true popularity more accurately than simply counting first-choice votes. (If your favorite wasn't in this poll, note that they didn't do well in previous cross-season polls.)
| Popularity | Choice |
VoteFair ranking score |
Traditional vote count (for comparison) |
| First-most popular | Clay Aiken (season 2) |  |
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| Second-most popular | Kelly Clarkson (season 1) | |
|
| Third-most popular | Carrie Underwood (season 4) | |
|
| Fourth-most popular | David Cook (season 7) | |
|
| Fifth-most popular | David Archuleta (season 7) | |
|
| Sixth-most popular | Kris Allen (season 8) | |
|
| Seventh-most popular | Adam Lambert (season 8) | |
|
| Eighth-most popular | Allison Iraheta (season 8) | |
|
| Ninth-most popular | Jennifer Hudson (season 3) | |
|
| Tenth-most popular | Jordin Sparks (season 6) | |
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| 11th-most popular | Elliott Yamin (season 5) | |
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| 12th-most popular | Danny Gokey (season 8) | |
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Season 8 poll and commentary
Note that the following commentary about text messaging being the deciding factor was written before the news about the text-messaging parties for Kris Allen.
Finale commentary
Adam Lambert has been at the top of the VoteFair poll every week except one (Top 11), so he is clearly more popular. That didn't change during Tuesday night's voting. So why did Kris Allen win? Text messaging—from Kris' younger fan base—tipped the balance.
Why was there a close balance? As pointed out here last week (and each season), the official American Idol voting mostly just measures phone-traffic capacity. Of course the three phone lines for one contestant have the same capacity as the three phone lines for the other contestant. What would be much more meaningful is to measure how many attempted calls for Adam Lambert got a busy signal compared with how many attempted calls for Kris Allen got a busy signal. Another way to correctly identify who is more popular is (as explained below in more detail) to statistically determine how many different phone numbers are getting through on each phone line. Fewer people can keep a phone line just as busy as a greater number of people.
Something similar happens in governmental elections. A political party can tip the balance in their favor by reducing the number of voting booths in districts where they are weak, and increasing the number of voting booths in districts where they are strong. Longer lines discourage voters, and shorter lines (where there are more voting booths) allow greater voting traffic.
Something similar happens in American Idol voting. Thousands of text messages can be sent over a single phone connection during the same time that another single phone connection handles a single voter listening to a few seconds of a contestant's recorded message. That tips the balance in favor of text messaging, which favors younger fans, who presumably tend to prefer Kris Allen.
Last year's upset occurred because phone lines stayed open later, beyond the bedtime of the younger fans of David Archuleta. The American Idol show doesn't share any voting details (not that they should), so we can't know for sure what causes the upsets. But we do know that dramatic results increase attention, and that's all the show's producers really want—so they can charge more for the show's commercials, and so the top singers attract more people to their stadium concerts. In other words, fairness is not the show's priority.
To all of you who voted here this season, thank you for participating!!
Top 2 commentary
In the Top 3 week it was announced that there were "only" about one million votes—out of about 80 million—separating Adam Lambert and Kris Allen. Here's a tip to help your favorite: When you hear the phone message confirming your vote, hang up without listening to all of it! That allows more calls to get through. Also (as stated here each season) use a land line, not a cell phone, if you can. That's because cell-phone towers are congested (giving busy signals when land lines aren't giving busy signals).
I was hoping the vote counters would have ensured fair results by using statistics. Specifically they can use a statistical sample of votes to identify how many different phone numbers get through for each contestant. Greater diversity reveals greater support. To understand this in simpler terms, imagine 100 calls from 20 different people, and compare that to 100 calls from just 5 people. Obviously if there are fewer people accounting for the same number of calls, they are getting through more often compared to a larger number of people who are getting through less often.
Over the years the vote-counters have improved their vote counting, but again they didn't get the final week's result right. Based on the poll results here, and Adam's amazing singing ability, he is clearly more popular. Of course he will pack stadiums even as the runner-up, so the results don't affect the future so much as to affect the perception of fairness in how the results are determined.
Yes, it seems like just counting carefully should be enough. Yet consider how long lines at election polling places affect governmental election results. Speaking of which, here in Oregon everyone votes by mail, so there are no polling places, and voter turnout is higher. That's part of why Presidential elections need electoral votes (but without the "electoral college") instead of simply using popular votes. Electoral votes prevent a high-turnout state like Oregon from overriding a low-turnout state experiencing stormy weather on election day. In a similar way, if American Idol cared about the fairness of its results, it would make fair adjustments to balance text messages, completed phone calls on land lines, completed phone calls on cell phones, and busy-signal calls on both land lines and cell phones.
Allison's early elimination
In the Top 4 week, Allison Iraheta was eliminated too early. She was second-most popular. So how did this happen? Let's look at last week's VoteFair poll results:
| Popularity | Choice | VoteFair ranking score | Traditional vote count (for comparison) |
| First-most popular | Adam Lambert | | |
| Second-most popular | Allison Iraheta | | |
| Third-most popular | Kris Allen | | |
| Fourth-most popular | Danny Gokey | | |
Notice that Allison Iraheta had the fewest first-choice votes, as indicated by the length of the horizontal bar in the Traditional Vote Count column. (She got 245 first-choice votes, and Danny Gokey got 251 first-choice votes.) That's what the official vote-counting uses (although unlike here they allow multiple votes from the same voter). Basically Allison Iraheta is very popular as a second or third choice, but not popular enough as a first choice, which translates into fewer phone calls. Another factor is that Danny Gokey appeals to his future audience of Christian-music fans, which is a well-networked fan base, somewhat analogous to the Country-music fans who made it easy for Carrie Underwood to win in Season 4. That factor can be called vote concentration, which is related to vote splitting. Fortunately this unfairness won't affect the final outcome.
Unfortunately we use the same primitive, first-choice vote counting in government elections, and that's why we have special-interest puppets instead of problem-solving leaders running our country. Please keep learning about how voting should be done so that we can sooner adopt 1-2-3 ballots and pairwise ballot counting in primary elections, which is where the biggest (yes, really!) unfairnesses occur. That simple change will allow us to elect leaders who know how to restore economic prosperity. As a simple example, we can align the self-interests of financial-services executives with widespread interests simply by heavily taxing financial-service executives who sell their company's stock without waiting at least four years after they acquire the stock. These kinds of simple solutions await us once we have the right leaders in charge. Please tell others that 1-2-3 ballots, not the usual single-mark ballots, should be used in primary elections! Thanks!
Top 5 week, Adam Lambert in bottom two
In the Top 5 week, the surprise was that Adam Lambert ended up in the bottom two, even though he is clearly the most popular. Apparently lots of people assumed that lots of other people were voting for him such that he didn't need more votes. This is called strategic voting, and it's a wise approach if there is accurate information about how many votes each person is likely to get. With the show not sharing that information about the top singers, strategic voting can lead to unexpected results.
Early elimination of Alexis Grace
During the Top 11 week, the Top 11 results revealed that Alexis Grace was in sixth place, so she was eliminated much too early. Fortunately the new rule could have allowed the judges to save her. Unfortunately she was stuck with singing a bad song choice. This unfair elimination demonstrates (once again) that vote splitting (see Wikipedia) can cause the person with the fewest first-choice votes to be someone other than the least popular choice. That's the point of conducting these polls, namely to teach how voting should be done when the results need to be fair (which is a different goal than packing stadiums for concerts).
Top 13 selection fairness
Was this year's method of selecting the top 13 fair? Yes, except that Group One had a higher proportion of the best male singers, which meant that Anoop Desai had to go through the Wild Card week to get into the top 13. The strategy of choosing top vote getters—instead of dropping the ones with the fewest votes—fits with the show's desire to identify who will pack a stadium, but the same approach is not fair in elections where fair representation is more important.
