LAST EDITED ON 01-09-09 AT 10:47 AM (EST)

>My thought has always been that
>they had the Final 3
>cast a vote as well
>for someone who isn't theirself,
>and the third place vote
>getter would decide the winner,

Yeah, a lot of people think that should be it. I don't like it, though. I don't like the thought of having a long, strategic game of earning the votes of the people you eliminated...and then saying, "Ok, you...the one person who came in third...you pick the winner."

It should be some type of challenge...at least that way, the eventual winner actually has to WIN it.

>but the secret envelope kind
>of debunks my theory.

I have an issue with the whole "there was a white envelope" thing. After all, the producers (and likely Jeff) already knew the results, and knew there wasn't a tie. Why would they go thru the hassle of having a white envelope containing what to do in the case of a tie? If there was a tie, you read the votes, and then Jeff simply says "In the case of a tie...."

I have an issue with the whole "there was a white envelope" thing. After all, the producers (and likely Jeff) already knew the results, and knew there wasn't a tie. Why would they go thru the hassle of having a white envelope containing what to do in the case of a tie? If there was a tie, you read the votes, and then Jeff simply says "In the case of a tie...."

Good point ... in other words ... I agree.

Jiffys penchant for misleading doesn't make him a very believable person, at least in the context of Survivor. The white envelope is likely nothing more than a ploy to create conversation among fans. The voting results are known before they leave the FC, and if there was a tie the situation would be resolved then ... with whatever tie-breaker system they want to use.

Michel commented on another thread that in Micronesia there was a tie vote that we never saw (edited out of the show) and the re-vote resulted in Mikeys eviction.

With a F3 and 7 jurors, there can't be a deadlocked tie. A 3-3-1 tie would be resolved immediately on the island with a revote and we would probably never even see it. Just like we never saw that the Fans' vote against Mikey first had a 4-4-1 tie between Mikey and Chet and an unaired revote. With the original F2 format, they'd never need to use those editing tricks.

Found as post #39 at:

http://community.realitytvworld.com/boards/DCForumID4/4832.shtml

Who got the one vote in that tie between Mikey & Chet? I'm just curious, that's all.

Belle Book

Hi Belle:
Jason received a vote from Joel. We actually saw Truck's first round ballot on screen at the end.

In the revote, Chet and Mikey couldn't vote so only 7 players voted:

We saw on screen Alexis and Jason voting Chet
Natalie, Erik, Kathy and Tracy voting Mikey.
Editing made it look like a 5-3-1 vote when in fact it had been a 4-4-1 vote and a 5-2 revote.

Someone switched their vote besides Joel but Mikey, Chet or Kathy didn't say who it was. It had to be Erik or Natalie.

Thanks for that bit of Survivor trivia.

I wrote the SOTS when Mikey got voted out. The vidcaps hinted that Mike would go, and that's who I went with, but I remember thinking something about the voting didn't make sense. That bit helps explain things. Editing makes and breaks the characters!

"Why would they go thru the hassle of having a white envelope containing what to do in the case of a tie? "

I assume they always prepare for all eventualities even if 2-3 people on the staff actually know what the results are.

Some of the stuff may be to keep every last stage hand who might call a friend from really knowing what is going on.

Heck, they might not even tell Jeff which exact tie breaker they are using. I'd be tempted (if I ran things) to have a couple of different things planned and then pick one at the last moment so there is less chance of anyone telegraphing what is going to happen. You might have to work through what the possibilities are for Jeff, especially for a live show. But I think he's a good enough host he could know how to run three different tie breakers even if he didn't know which exact one he might have to host.

>I assume they always prepare for
>all eventualities even if 2-3
>people on the staff actually
>know what the results are.

What eventualities? They know the vote, they know it's a tie, they know they have to break it.

>Some of the stuff may be
>to keep every last stage
>hand who might call a
>friend from really knowing what
>is going on.

I don't know what you mean by this. If the random stage hand knows what the vote is, how does having a "white envelope" there change anything?

>Heck, they might not even tell
>Jeff which exact tie breaker
>they are using. I'd
>be tempted (if I ran
>things) to have a couple
>of different things planned and
>then pick one at the
>last moment so there is
>less chance of anyone telegraphing
>what is going to happen.

That's dangerous ground to tread on in a competition show. If anyone were to find out that you decided at that moment on what the tiebreaker would be, there could be claims that you picked a particular tie breaker in order to help one particular person win. It's better to have everything scripted out in advance so that there's no question that the game is fair to everyone. (At least in the sense that no one changed the rules during the game).

> You might have to
>work through what the possibilities
>are for Jeff, especially for
>a live show. But
>I think he's a good
>enough host he could know
>how to run three different
>tie breakers even if he
>didn't know which exact one
>he might have to host.

I think that's a bad idea. If the vote is a tie, and they are going to break the tie at the reunion show, the best bet is to run thru the tiebreaker procedures with Jeff and the dream team so that they know what to expect, and where to position the cameras, etc.

From what I've read the random stage hands are kept as in the dark as possible about who the winner is and what the vote total is.

If they hide the results from the crew at all costs (like having all the cameras that record the final votes unmanned) I assume they will do nothing that telegraphs the results to anyone but the 2-3 people that have to know before the reveal.

So if you could have a tie, I assume they have whatever the tie breaker will look like set up so the people that are not "need to know" have as little idea of what is going on as possible.

I think you misunderstood me.

I assume that if there is any mathematical chance there is a tie vote they run all the possible tie breakers with anyone that would be a part of setting things up even when then 2-3 people who know there is no tie know there is no tie and not one jot of that set up will be used.

Even if I as the producer know which of the different ones we are using I would have decoys set up and let the crew and Jeff know which one of the things we pre-arranged we are doing at the last possible moment.

People can't blab or telegraph that which they do not know.

Eliza, who was on the Micronesia jury, wrote this:

"I have no idea what they were planning in Micronesia, but whatever it was, I'm pretty sure it would have occurred out there and not live in NYC..."

I agree with her.

So, now we have one Survivor telling us that the tiebreaker was contained in a white envelope at the live show....and another telling us that she assumes they would have handled it at the location.

Translation: No one knows (outside of the production team) what would be done.

Micronesia was the only F2 season with 8 jurors, a situation that's unlikely to happen again.

The white envelope was almost certainly a decoy because production knew there wasn't a tie when they started the reunion show. The last TC wasn't edited that Sunday night! I'm of the opinion that, when Jeff left Micronesia, he already knew there wasn't a tie.

What do we really know?

We know there are at least 3 cameras at the voting booth: one that shoots face on to the voter, one that shoots down to what is being written, and one that shoots from behind the voter (when Randy was speaking after his vote the camera angle was from behind). Even if there is not a camera operator ‘behind’ the camera, anyone with television production knowledge knows that there is a director that watches what is being recorded by the cameras. The sound is also recorded and someone knows what every voter says as a comment about their vote. Therefore we know (not assume) that there is at least one person who knows what the vote is as it happens. That is to say, they know what the vote is before they leave TC.

We know that Jiffy says, after everyone has voted,” I’ll go tally the votes.” We never see him go to the voting booth, pick up the container and bring it directly back to his position at TC. We see him leave and can very safely assume that he takes the votes out of the container and arranges them in an order that provides the best drama when he reads the results. We do not know if there is someone else to help him, but we might suspect there is someone else at the location where he counts the votes. But, at very least, Jiffy knows.

I think the answer given by several posters here is that the tie would be taken care off before they leave TC; whatever they have planned for such an eventuality, and we can safely assume that they would have considered that possibility whenever they have an F3. Editing the final episode would make the whole thing fit the time frame.

As I mentioned in another thread, I believe that Micronesia ended as an F2, with a jury of 8, because James was removed from the game for medical reasons. In that episode Alexis was also voted off.

LAST EDITED ON 01-12-09 AT 08:02 AM (EST)

No one is saying no one knows at all what happened.

What we are saying is most of the crew that is in on what goes on is pulled from the set for the final vote and there is only a couple of producers who are privy to the information.

If you don't want hardly anyone that works on the show to know what the frick is going on (because who won is a need to know piece of information and very few people actually need to know).

This is probably why we get a lot fewer betting spoilers for Survivor from what I've seen than we get for the Amazing Race where they have to have all the contestants and possibly more crew in on the finale shot with the winner.

No one really knows when a tie would be taken care of, because we have never seen it happen. I don't think it is a huge stretch that if they keep everything secret from all but a couple of producers and editors that absolutely have to know the winner that they have a tie decoy set up in any situation where there is a mathematical chance of a tie. If there can be a tie they will act as if there might be a tie to keep as much information top secret as possible.

They got really tight with information IMO because I believe the winner of season one (where they did the reveal in front of the cast and crew before they left Borneo) got leaked. You lose too many viewers if the final result is all over the web for weeks or months before the finale airs. So they try to keep that as secret as possible. Why is that so hard to believe? Especially when there are somewhere around on the web published interviews that say just how hard they work to keep the final result from pretty much everyone involved in the show?

ETF spelling and some clarity at the end.