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Original Message
"Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by strid333 on 05-13-04 at 00:19 AM
Ok, I'm not exactly sure how things are in American Idol, but in Canadian Idol, last summer, we were having discussions about vote rigging and such. At the end of the season when it was only Gary Beals and Ryan Malcolm, the general consensus here on these boards were that we wanted Ryan to win. So some of the people who got the show first (thanks to time zones) posted the actual number for Ryan. I successfully voted for Ryan several times before it aired in my time zone.

My question is if the same thing can be done in AI, or has there been some safeguards in place to prevent something like that happening? This could partially explain Jasmine's being safe this week. Could the people from Hawaii have voted for 3 or 4 hours instead of the 2 that is always mentioned on the show?

Sorry about the long-windedness but it is something to throw out into the mess of American Idol.


Three is the perfect number.

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Messages in this discussion
"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by realityjunky on 05-13-04 at 00:45 AM
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking but the way it works here in the U.S. is the voting is only open for a certain time in your time zone...either 1 or 2 hours...I can't remember which...that being said, I am on the west coast so my polling doesn't open up until after 9pm after the performances...I know this is accurate in theory because I've tried to vote a few minutes before 9 and haven't gotten through and then a few minutes later have gotten through...but last night I called solidly for 2 hours and never got through to any of 4 numbers...I called every number just to make sure I wasn't misdialing...I kept getting the message that the number was not in service, check my number and dial again...I'm not a conspiracy theorist but am beginning to wonder about the company(I think they outsource the vote collecting process) who is collecting the votes that maybe they don't have the capacity to collect the quantity of votes coming in...I'm wondering if they are using some sort of statistical extrapolation to get the final votes and if that's the case then we are being deceived a little about the voting...JMHO
"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by strid333 on 05-13-04 at 00:58 AM
>I'm not exactly sure what you're
>asking
I know, it's kinda weird but the whole thing was bizarre last year. The show was on at 7 pm local time and the numbers were posted at 5 pm local time (if I remember correctly). I was able to vote until about 6:30 pm, then the message changed to CTV asks that you wait until the show has finished airing (or words to that effect). I tried again at 7:30 pm with the same error message. It was at 8 pm (when I technically was supposed to vote) that I was able to resume voting.

I'm just not sure if there is a similar way to trip the system in the US, or has a better protection been placed. If New York posted Jasmine's number when it was airing there, what's not to say that Hawaii couldn't vote for several hours (even if there were gaps reminding people to finish watching the show)?


Three is the perfect number.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by rjrabbit on 05-13-04 at 01:13 AM
I'm on the west coast and I've never tried to vote early. Cheating just doesn't enter my mind. There's a 6 hour difference between EST and Hawaii time. If the situation you describe is how it works in the US too, then Hawaii could get 8 hours to vote (minus twenty minutes for EST and West coast). It's the only thing that makes sense. The East coast gets two hours to vote, the West Coast 5 and Hawaii 8. Something's wrong!

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by strid333 on 05-13-04 at 01:22 AM
Cheating just doesn't enter
>my mind.

It never really entered my mind either, but there was bad blood between the Beals family and the Klipperts (Billy was in third was booed and heckled off the stage by the Beals family while he was singing his farwell song) and Gary really, really sucked. We honestly believed that it would be an absolute disgrace to our nation if we let him be our winner considering how many awesome musicians we produce in our country. When the number was posted, I was curious to see if it would work and it did, and I kept voting. Do I feel guilty? Well, if it were a more legitimate final two, I would've felt guilty and I would've stopped too but honestly, I don't feel bad.


Three is the perfect number.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by 712 on 05-13-04 at 01:45 AM
Haha, on the CI final, I was only able to get through three times. And all three times were before the show aired in my time zone. I sat there in class secretly dialing in Ryan votes from my cell.

Heres to hoping we NEVER have another Gary Beals!

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by strid333 on 05-13-04 at 01:51 AM
>Heres to hoping we NEVER have
>another Gary Beals!
>
Amen! Wasn't that just another disaster? Gonna be back here again when CI2 airs?


Three is the perfect number.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by rjrabbit on 05-13-04 at 04:10 PM
I'm sorry if it sounded like I was calling you a cheater. I understand why you did what you did. I'm glad you did cause it validates what I've been thinking that people are voting outside the allotted time frame for their time zone. I wonder if anyone on the East Coast has tried to vote past the 10 PM cutoff. I wished I had tried Tuesday night to vote early to see if it was possible. If it is possible in the US then AI needs to do something about that. If the East and Central time zones only get 2 hours to vote and the other times zones get more than 2 hours - that's not fair.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by strid333 on 05-13-04 at 04:33 PM
Naw, I didn't think you were calling me a cheater, so don't worry, eh? People were bending the rules so I was bending back. Honestly, I would like it better if there was no way to bend the rules.


Three is the perfect number.

"Thanks to both of you"
Posted by qwertypie on 05-17-04 at 07:42 PM
If you are the reason Gary Beals did not win Canadian Idol you have my almost eternal gratitude! I found his voice and his personality to be as pleasant as a teeth cleaning. Of course being hugely pregnant at the time meant my annoyance tolerance was extremely low. I was rooting for Billy, but hubby unit was tying up both phone lines voting for Jenny. Go figure! I, of course, became a huge Ryan fan when it cane down to the final two.
Out of curiousity, how many Canucks use this forum when CI is airing?

Warm fuzzies to everyone who voted for someone other than Gary
La Vida es un Tango!

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by realityjunky on 05-13-04 at 02:02 AM
I guess I really don't understand because I thought the polling center just rejected your calls if it weren't calling from the right time zone based on your area code...I work at a phone company and with caller id and call accounting they just can just set it up so the calls from an area code will only be accepted for a specific time frame...for me it 9pm PST to 11PM PST and if I call before or after those times my call is rejected...Maybe the producers need to clarify...
"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by strid333 on 05-13-04 at 02:12 AM
Ok, that makes sense. It seems like, then, that American Idol did put some safeguards up and Canadian Idol didn't.


Three is the perfect number.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by rjrabbit on 05-13-04 at 04:11 PM
I think AI absolutely needs to clarify this. I want them to assure me that the voting system is fair.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by managerr on 05-13-04 at 02:15 AM
2 hours after the show airs in your time zone, period.
"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by seahorse on 05-13-04 at 04:45 PM
Here is my theory of what might be happening.

There are a fixed number of lines for each contestant. If millions of voters are dialing the same # at once then there are only a certain percentage of calls that are going to get through. Each lines can probably receive only a fixed amount of calls per hour.

As a hypothetical example, lets assume that each contestant can receive 1 milion votes per hour, then if more than this amount are voting for each of the contestants, (say 1 million for contestant A, 2 million for contestant B, 2 million for contestant C, and 3 million for contestant D,) thet will all receive close to the same amount of votes 1 million per hour. THe contestants that receive the most calls just get the most busy signals for there voter, the difference in votes totaled could be neglible.

This happens for 4 hours, 2 hours in the East and Central, and 2 hours in the Mountain and West time zones. Then a few hours later the phones open up in Hawaii for 2 hours. Since there are a lot less people in Hawaii voting than in the East or West, there are no busy signals at that time and all the calls get through, so assuming Jasmine is contestant A and she gets 200,00 calls an hour from Hawiii while the others get only 100,000 calls per hour then Jasmine can win the voting with 4.4 million, vs. 4.2 million each for the other 3 contestants, even though many more calls wanted to vote for the other 3 contestants.

This is just a theory, but unless the voting time duration is increased substantially or the # of actual lines per contestant is increased so that there are negligible busy signals, then anyone of the contestants could be the winner even if the do not receive the most calls attempting to vote.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by broodgal on 05-14-04 at 00:53 AM
Thats probably the best theory i have read on the voting.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by Ricky on 05-14-04 at 01:29 AM
That is a good theory. It seems though that even though there are less people in Hawaii, if they were all voting muliple times for Jasmine at the same time they would probably get some busy signals as well.

broodgal - Is that Go Go in your sig ?

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by seahorse on 05-14-04 at 08:45 AM
They might get some busy signals in Hawaii also, but lets assume there are 150 million people in the East/Central time zones and 120 million in the Mountain/West time zones which vote from and 5 million in Hawaii.

If there are a similar amount of lines available for all three time periods, then there will be a less busy signals and a lot greater percentage of the people in that time zone will be able to vote.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by broodgal on 05-14-04 at 12:48 PM
Yahoo had an article that out of the 5 million attempts by Hawaii that 1.3 million got through. Don't know how accurate they are.

Yes that is Go Go in my sig.

"RE: Question about voting and time zones to tonite's results"
Posted by seahorse on 05-14-04 at 02:15 PM
Hawaii has a population of 1.2 million and 1.3 million votes got through or about 1.1 votes per person. The rest of the United States has a population of about 280 million and 30 million votes got through.

That means that per capita each person in Hawaii voted 10 times as much as people in other states which helps explain why Jasmine is still in the competion.

"In fact..."
Posted by AyaK on 05-14-04 at 03:24 PM
...keep in mind that you're just focusing on votes that got through. There were 3.7 million attempts to vote in Hawaii that did NOT get through. In other words, the average Hawaiian attempted to vote 4 times.
"RE: In fact..."
Posted by seahorse on 05-17-04 at 03:59 PM
LAST EDITED ON 05-18-04 AT 11:52 AM (EST)

You are correct, but while I do not have the numbers to back it up, I would bet that the ratio of calls attempted vs calls that get through are higher in Hawaii because when they are voting the rest of us are prevented from voting because our two hour voting time slot is over.

The fact that Hawaiins are casting 10 x the votes per capita votes that are actually being counted, could skew the votes in Jasmine's favor.