DWTS Season 16 – The Great Voting Controversy That Wasn’t
It’s funny – when people were complaining loudly last season about not being able to vote on ABC.com, no one paid attention. Well, except for Shawn fans, that is. We were told we just had to deal, that Melissa won fair and square. Hmmm….maybe not so much.
Not so fun, is it, now that the shoe is on the other foot? I’m writing this post to explain to readers why this season was actually MORE fair, in terms of voting, than last season was – and why I think ABC realized they screwed up last season and weren’t going to let it happen again.
So, ask yourself this – as a long time, or even new, reader of PureDWTS, what happens when a whole bunch of people go to the website at the same time?? Why, it bogs down, it crashes and only certain lucky people manage to get through. Now, our server may not be the greatest, and you would think that ABC would have a much bigger one able to handle a lot more traffic…right? Of course – but DWTS is also watched by anywhere from 14 to 16 million people. When you have one contestant with 2.6 million twitter followers urging all her fans to create new email addresses in order to vote, in addition to all the regular users of ABC.com for voting, you suddenly have a situation where the website can’t handle the traffic and it just crashes.
ABC, of course, handled it badly from a PR standpoint. A similar situation happened last season and they didn’t fix it, they let it go. This season they just took it off line. Instead of explaining to people why this was a legitimate reaction to a bad website, they just said “hey, it went off line so we’re not counting votes.” Now, after a while, thinking people realize that this season is going to be the most reflective of the audience in general than any other season before it. But most people aren’t going to *think* about it from a logical stand point. Not to mention that a good portion of them are tween Zendaya fans who can’t be faulted for their lack in logic. They haven’t developed that skill set yet.
Why is pulling it offline a legitimate reaction? Well, how would YOU feel if the President of the United States was elected only by those people living in New York City, Boston, Atlanta….basically the eastern and central time zones?? Republicans would be SOL. Sorry, Midwest, west and Pacific Coast – you get NO say. Too bad, so sad. The website crashed about an hour into the live broadcast, which meant only those people in the Eastern and Central Time zones who were smart enough to vote IMMEDIATELY had votes that initially counted (and those who have created accounts with Central and Eastern time zone zip codes, of course, regardless of where they live). Now, there were probably fans of everyone voting in that time frame – but how can you be sure?? How can you legitimately let those votes stand when you know for a fact that more than half the country had no chance to vote online at all?
The smart answer is – you can’t.
So, the smart TV executive engages his brain and says, “We have little to no trouble with the phones/text and facebook seems to be fine, so we’ll just eliminate the ABC.com voting entirely.” Good choice actually. He/she probably realized (or had some very smart techie tell him/her) that by eliminating the ABC.com voting, you eliminate ALL power voting capabilities. Simply – it becomes one person, 25 votes (approximately). Two phones (roughly), two texting accounts and one facebook. Every person gets about the same amount. There is no crazy Maks fan saying “I voted 1000 times” or no crazy Derek fans saying “I voting 1500 times”…and no Zendaya fans saying they voted 500 times each. Nope – it’s 25 votes per person, period. As close as you’re going to get to a democracy on this show. Maybe they didn’t care about power voters – maybe the simply realized that having only one hour of voting wasn’t fair to anyone in the mountain and pacific time zones. And maybe the site was getting hit so hard they knew it wouldn’t come back at all. Hard to say.
Now, I’m sure some of you will be jumping up and down saying, “BUT I can make many facebook accounts.” Well, it’s not as easy as it is for ABC.com accounts. In fact, I tried to make a second account for my website and it’s just not that simple. Others will claim, “But there are still ways to vote multiple times on facebook.” Yeahhhh…not sure that actually works. It’s much easier to cull out duplicate votes by one facebook account than it is multiple ABC.com accounts. I wager most people don’t bother to try to figure all that out. Everyone is capable of finding ways around the system, but I doubt that many people spend much time doing just that. In any case, there was no time for that this season. In future seasons there might be – but not this one. Sure, people can go grab phones of everyone they know and I’m sure they do – but you’re still likely to be limited to less than 50 votes per person. And everyone is going to do that regardless of who they are a fan of. The point is: instead of having fan groups with hundreds of accounts and the ability to sway the winner in a given direction, it’s much closer to a simple democracy – he/she with the most votes wins. NOT he/she with the most power voters wins. An important distinction.
That is significant because a lot of Zendaya fans are crying foul. I’m telling them they have no grounds. No grounds at all. “But…but…you didn’t count my online votes. Zendaya would have won if you had!!” Umm….no. ALL fan’s votes got eliminated. Fans of Zendaya, fans of Kellie, fans of Jacoby and fans of Aly – ALL of them had votes on ABC.com thrown out. Adding those votes back in does not automatically mean that Zendaya would win, that’s just silly and childish. And completely illogical. We have no way of knowing what impact that would have had on the outcome. What we do know is that the outcome we got is far more reflective of the general public than any previous vote on DWTS. I would even guess, since Boston (Aly) and Baltimore (Raven fans for Jacoby) were in the mix that got dumped and those two danced early in the show that THEY had more votes dumped than anyone else. Just a guess. Kellie had Nashville (central time zone) voting for her so she’s in that block as well. Three of the four finalists had their hometowns in the time zones that had a chance to vote – and you still think Zendaya was the one who got robbed? Nope – ALL the finalists had votes eliminated and it is NOT a sure thing that Zendaya was the one affected the most. The opposite is likely, in fact.
As for the claim that eliminating online voting impacted Zendaya more than any other couple?? Also a ridiculous claim. The average viewer of this show is middle aged and female…actually I think the median age was something like 62. So, kids, does grandma have facebook?? I bet that the vast majority of the time, the answer is NO. How many of the average tweens/teens has facebook?? Probably ALL of them, correct?? I’m afraid the reality is that the elimination of online voting impacted Kellie and Jacoby fans more than either Zendaya or Aly – I just think those two fanbases skew older than Zen’s or Aly’s. I also think that Kellie and Jacoby fans are much more likely to rely on abc.com than facebook. Frankly, the only reason that Zendaya fans are making this claim is because they were robbed of the ability to power vote as instructed by Zendaya herself. But then – everyone was robbed of that ability. While not *against* the rules, per se, it’s not exactly a way to vote that is promoted by ABC – in fact, they went through the process of making all email addresses be validated in the attempt to make power voting HARDER. So, if they eliminate that ability altogether, you can hardly claim you’ve been wronged.
Another thing I heard some complaining about was “But, international fans didn’t get to vote!!” I believe Sharna even pulled this one out. My response is….”So?” Why is it important for international fans to vote on an American TV show and why should anyone care if they don’t? ABC won’t care except for the money from the website hits…but international fans don’t count toward the demo, they don’t count towards total viewers….why should they get a say in who wins?? I’m seriously asking this question – I have no idea why this is important to anyone OTHER than people who are of a different nationality dancing on the show. From my point of view, I’ve encouraged it of Derek’s international fans for sure, but I don’t find it to be particularly important if NO ONE’s international fans are allowed to vote. Same issue at play – EVERYONE’s international fans have been eliminated. All the couples are treated the same.
I do think that, once upon a time, power voters had far less power than they do now. I think now pro fanbases together have the power to decide who wins – which is why I think, under normal circumstances for this show, that Derek will never win again. Why do I think this? Well, as the ratings go down, I imagine (and I AM only imagining, I have no way of knowing) that the number of average viewers voting actually goes down as well. I think it’s entirely possible that the numbers of people voting goes down faster than the number of viewers does – the price you pay for obvious manipulation (but that’s another post). As you reduce the number of average viewers voting, you increase the power of the voting blocks. A relatively simple math problem. When all the pro fanbases look at Derek and see the possibility of MBT#5?? They will all – without any coordination – vote for someone else. And at this point, I can’t really blame them for that. I think that’s what they did LAST season. I think a big factor in Melissa winning was the pro fanbases all voting *against* Derek and Shawn. In addition to all the other factors in play. Add in the highly flawed online voting – nearly as flawed as this season only left on line with all votes counted?? And you have one highly flawed outcome. I’m sure all the Melissa fans, who are also fans of Val/Zendaya had NO problem with that outcome, right?? Well, you can’t have them all go your way, and you also can’t claim this season was unfair after last season – last season the better dancer didn’t win, but you did. Fact is, you didn’t have the opportunity to spam your way to victory – this season it’s “one person, 25 votes”. If everyone gets the same number of votes, then the outcome is reflective of the average viewer/voter and not power voters. That’s perfectly fair – and you have no way of knowing that you would have won WITH the ability to power vote. Note – I’m not saying that power voting is unfair, and I’ve done it a time or two myself. If ABC wanted to do away with that ability, they very easily could. But they don’t, either because they would have to spend money do to it, or it would cost them money from website hits. Either way – since they haven’t prevented it, only made it harder, then they can hardly claim it’s “unfair” to power vote. BUT, by the same token, when they eliminate that ability WE don’t get to claim it’s unfair. On the contrary.
Now, ask yourself this – why was ABC so quick to take ABC.com voting off line?? Why not try to fix it? And why did they handle it so badly?? Well, that last one is easy – they didn’t think it would be that big a deal. They made the mistake of thinking that if they threw out EVERYONE’s votes, then it was fair and everyone would recognize that. Silly boys. You need to explain more for those who are blinded by righteous indignation. Or who aren’t smart enough to figure it out. Usually, you guys assume your audience is dumb…why the sudden switch to assuming they were smart??
Why did they take it off line so quickly and not try to fix it?? Of course I have a theory. I think they know that they bungled it last season and they weren’t going to live with that again. Last season was nearly as bad in terms of online voting – hard time getting through, couldn’t get the site to load and so on. Last season they let it go, tried fixes, let the votes count. I am NOT saying that Shawn would have won if they had done it the way they did this season – not at all. I think for a variety of reasons, all previously discussed, things were just going Melissa’s way. I don’t think they cared who won last season and we will never know in any case. But I do think they care about the “integrity” of their voting system and perhaps they recognize the danger in that system being called into question. Hell, maybe they got audited. There are rules for voting in competition shows, I’m sure. So, when this season rolled around and they saw the same issues but only WORSE, they threw in the towel. I’m sure one of their brain trusts is smart enough to realize the whole system is more fair (although still not perfect) when you eliminate that aspect. In a way, I think that Zendaya and her fans did it to themselves – you can’t tell your 2.6 million tween twitter followers (the most passionate of passionate, tweens are) to create new email accounts and register them online and expect them to not listen. They did what you told them to do every day for a week leading up to the finale. Then it all came home to roost on Monday night – they took all those emails and bombarded the ABC.com site right when you told them too (along with all the other power voters) – and boom! Site crashes. ABC takes it off line and EVERYONE is limited to their 20 or so votes. One person, one vote (not literally) is about as fair as you can get.
I vote that abc.com voting be eliminated completely from now on. Have the average viewer decide the winner. Will they do that? Probably not. I think there is too much cash tied to online voting for them to eliminate it or at least narrow the time frame you can do it in. But I think the results would be more interesting.
I wonder if one of the reason of not counting the votes was that they saw some robo-voting going on. I don’t mean a person with 100s of accounts, I mean hacking of some sort.
My issue is that no-one explained it like producers of The Voice did.
Ditto to everything said.
Concise and to the point.
Thanks for this.
I didn’t even KNOW there was a problem with online voting last season! I’m pretty sure I was able to get ALL my votes in for Shawnough.
Heidi, what you said makes sense. It usually does. WIll TPTB listen? Heck no!
Princess Heidi, GREAT explanation. I hope many people read that.
I’m tired with people complain here and there, until NOW. Other contestants, pros and their fanbases seemed to think that Zendaya would win based on her fanbases and last season result. Derek had won many times, bla, bla, bla, and He was proved no winning last season, so hopefully, not this season. But they have to admit that more viewers had voted for Kellie and Derek than others, that was why they won. And it was not with no reason. Kellie had become GREAT dancer week after week, and for those who hated and still hate Derek for winning many times, have to admit that many viewers (include me) thought or finally admitted that He was/is GREAT choreographer, teacher and partner, and he WORKED HARD (again, WORKED HARD) for Kellie. And thank God, more people realized that this season.
There was much trouble voting last season, but it was much weirder, Kelly – it seemed like some people had no problem and others couldn’t vote at all.
“Adding those votes back in does not automatically mean that Zendaya would win, that’s just silly and childish.” Oh, wait… her fans are silly children! lol
Great post!
The only reason I can see as to why the international viewers should be able to vote is because of the military families who are stationed overseas. I myself was a military brat for 21years and only lived state-side for about 10 of them. Military families who are stationed overseas can only vote online, I’m not sure about the facebook as I don’t vote that way I prefer to just phone my votes in on my cellphone. I also know of some who created a second account when they pcsed(military move to new place) stateside, and they want to have the correct zipcode for their account. Those I know, and yes I had to do it a few times when voting online due to living overseas when the show was still “new”, will use the most recent zipcode, or the “hometown” zipcode. Now if ABC were to make it to were facebook was the “online voting”(and just eliminate the abc.com voting all together, then international fans(ie- military families stationed overseas) would still be able to vote, provided they had a facebook which could still cause problems since not everyone agrees with having a facebook(privacy issues). <—In answer to the question on "Why do international viewers count at all" from the original post by Heidi.
Awesome post! 🙂 I’m just wondering if ABC knows itself that this season’s finale was the most fair out of all of them…Or if they will continue to ignore the implications of their actions.
I feel like more of this show’s behind-the-scenes stuff (producing-wise) would be so interesting to analyze haha.
But I ask again – do people stationed overseas actually get to SEE the show? And if not, do they need to vote?
As for facebook being the only way to vote online and some not wanting to use facebook – well, that’s a personal choice much like deciding to vote online is.
Well said!
As a fan from Canada, I do appreciate the ability to vote, but I could do it from Facebook anyway. I’m not a power voter, either (the most I’ve done is two email accounts a few seasons ago)-so I was perfectly happy with 5 Facebook votes. The international fans weren’t ALL left out, and I do agree that it didn’t matter that much. It is an American TV show; I just like being included when I can be.
Well said. I agree with everything. I would love to see voting abc.com be taken away for good. It would make voting more fair to everyone on the show and maybe, just maybe, help get some celebrities to agree to do the show without feeling like they don’t stand a chance.
Gawd, so true Heidi. EVERYTHING!! So well said and written!!!!
Cindy, I agree (and I agree with Heidi too on this). Maybe they should just take the voting at ABC.com down.
Well said Heidi. I agree 100%
Great post. I do have a question. I thought voting on the ABC.com site was limited to over 18. Am I wrong?
I have voted multiple email accounts in the past(hanging my head in shame) but this year was very happy to just vote multiple phone lines and text.
I can’t believe I’m actually curious about what the Zswaggers have to say about Kellie winning the encore. That was Twitter, their specialty, yet Kellie won. I did take a look somewhere at some of their comments in general, and when I got to the post where it said “Kellie didn’t earn it,” blah blah blah, “and besides, she’s ugly,” I left and never went back. But I am curious if anyone of them has addressed the encore or if they just skipped over that and went straight to the abc.com vote “problem.”
I’m an international fan … I am from Panama and Derek and Kellie lost my votes in ABC. COM and won anyway. I’m happy for that. Anyway, Kellie and Derek deserved win.
Susan, they claim that Zendaya trended every week and Kellie NEVER trended and that was just one sign of the entire finale being rigged. Of course, they completely ignore that Kellie actually trended every week and during some of those twitter contests Derek fans were sure that Kellie won because when you look at the trend graphs Kellie’s peak was higher. But you can’t look at it that way – you have to look at the number of tweets over the whole time period. So, while Kellie had the most at one time, Zendaya had more over the course of the night – meaning the tweens sustained the tweeting over longer periods, which makes sense considering they are TWEENS. On the finale night, Kellie finally got a sustained enough trend that she beat Zendaya – AND her peak was a good 3k higher than Zendaya’s – it was something like 13k for Kellie to 9.5k for Zendaya. This also makes sense, since the freestyle kicked serious ass.
But of course, the Zen fans, instead of looking at the whole picture, just claim Kellie never trended and in the next breath show she did indeed trend but than Zendaya trended higher…but they start the graph at midnight, a full four hours after the show started on the east coast. They cherry pick data to suit their claims.
Great explanation Heidi. When I saw that Kellie was beating Zendaya by more than 5k, I thought perhaps there was a chance that Kellie won. Have to say, I appreciated being able tweet #encore kellie instead of voting on abc.com for my email accounts Monday night. Kellie and Derek winning wasmthe icing on the cake! That frestyle was KILLER!!
I think the whole issue this past season (other than the voting, and everything that PH said SO WELL in this post) is that many youth today have grown up feeling entitled. What they want, they get, when they want. And, they live in the age of internet, and it makes them feel anonymous…. Enabling them to feel they can say and do whatever they want, when they want. And, it seems to fixate them on one idol, turning them into their own god…. And the results aren’t good.
This time, we got Zswaggers, who do whatever Zen says, because Zen says, and because they think she is infallable, everyone who says otherwise must be brought to reason, even if their reasoning isn’t very good.
I admit, I’m one of those awful, and evil Derek fans…. I’m also a fan of his sister, they will always top my list of favorite dancers. And, I’ve seen what the Vampire Diaries fans have said to her, after 2 of those characters broke up in real life…. I think one was even… “die, b*****”…….
Anyway, tread with care with these fangroups.
Great post PH. Love it.
Doubt it will sway those with negative opinions on the outcome though. The ones with a good head on their shoulders already agreed that it was more fair and the ones without, well, can’t often be swayed by reason:)
I just don’t care for the unreasonable insults… No one ever said Zendaya was a lousy dancer. She just never really got better as the season progressed. Kellie & Derek’s freestyle kicked ass but the Twerps refuse to admit that
I really think that the twitter encore tells the story. That was Kellie’s win fair and square and if Zendaya’s tweens couldn’t beat her there, I just don’t see them beating her anywhere. That freestyle spoke to people.
Great post, Heidi. I vote for them eliminating abc.com voting, too.
A comment I saw (one of many similar) on a Ytube of Kellie & Derek’s freestyle was along the lines of: Had been voting for Zendaya (or splitting votes btwn Zendaya and ___________ )…it all came down to the better dancer in the Freestyle. For me, kinda the purpose of the freestyle.
Who knows going into that night who was ahead in viewer votes. Bottom line, Val & Zendaya & the other semifinalists regardless of the VOTING FIASCO had the SAME chance going into the Freestyle to produce magic as did Kellie & Derek. In a contest so close in scoring, they had their chance. And lost to the better team. Works for me!
Heidi(#9) some of the people stationed overseas will watch online the next day and will do what I call “blind votes” for the star they like.(Which I admit I did a couple of seasons ago when I had a class on Monday nights). I don’t know if they can still watch it on the tellie(TV), though I think most would have to do blind voting and watch online the next day, or look for links to watch online via online streaming.
all the online arguments get tossed out the window when kellie won the encore….because that caters to international, and online voters…all zendaya’s fans know her and talk to her on twitter…so when she lost the twitter vote…i knew kellie won…at the end of the day…kellie and zendaya were neck and neck…but the freestyle blew them all out of the water…
Also I agree w/abc.com voting going down for good. Idol gives 50 votes per FB acct & as PH said, not so easy to create multiples on FB. Then, it’s the phones. Levels the playing field IMO & I would HOPE that the contestants would WANT a level playing field.
Lois, that might be what did it. Zen fans crashed the ABC.com site so we couldnt vote there so everyone just started voting for encoreKelly. I think her fans were her own worst enemy.
Princess Heidi, great explanation! Thank you so much for writing this. I’ve been waiting for something like this since no one bothered to explain the possible reasons of why abc.com site crashed. I’m one of the international fans and was bummed that I couldn’t vote online. But when Tom said that none of the online votes were counted due to a glitch (a big one), I thought that ALL the finalists were affected and that made the playing field even for everyone concerned. And I totally agree with you that only the level-headed fans could actually get this rationale.
You know, the first time I had ever watched DWTS was during Season 5 when I was 9 years old and I have been a loyal viewer ever since. I remember voting for the first time for Brooke and Derek in season 7 using all the phones in my house because 1) I had a crush on Derek, & 2) They were by far the best couple. Obviously as a ten year old I didn’t have an e-mail account or a Twitter or a Facebook (well at least most ten year olds didn’t in 2008) so I didn’t vote like a crazy person all night long and I wasn’t fighting with fans of Warren or Lance online and embarrassing myself.
I look back on those days and I sigh to myself. For me, DWTS was extremely enjoyable when I was offline and just enjoyed the show and watched the results play out. The show has become so competitive and bitter with social networking and it just isn’t as fun anymore. I can’t even watch a single video of Kellie + Derek on Youtube without a reading a war in the comments section. Sure, I had my favorites and people I didn’t like, but it never got to a point where I was making a fool of myself online and saying things like “F*** Marie Osmond” for beating Derek and Jennie to the final. I wish people would remember that it’s just a reality TV show, and there’s no reason to get so mad over the results. I think the Internet, especially Twitter, has corrupted this show. Even the competitors aren’t as light-hearted about it anymore.
I don’t know why Zendaya fans are so mad about abc.com crashing. I know some older women use facebook, but for the most part, Zendaya fans had an advantage over them because if there’s already 2.8 million of them on Twitter, chances are she has more fans on Facebook willing to vote. But hey, that’s just my theory.
And just one more thing, as a teenager myself (if you do the math I am now 14 years old), I’m really sorry about the hoards of tweens and teenagers blindly assaulting Kellie and Derek online. It makes decently intelligent and respectful people like myself look terrible. Introducing Zendaya and here teenage fanbase to the show ruined the season for me. Hopefully they’re all so upset by the results that they don’t tune-in next season and ruin it again.
I’m international fan. I can’t watch the show live, but be able to watch it on youtube. My friends too. We vote on facebook. Who’s in this earth that don’t have facebook by the way. Maybe not all people but many. In my country, almost 95 persen people have facebook. I believe in many country too. We watch the show on youtube and have enough time to vote. So if Kellie and Derek won, maybe many international fans voted for them. It should explain CLEARLY to Zendaya fans. 2,7 followers is nothing if you include international fans who voted on FB. And dont forget that FB users are more than twiiter users. People like my Mom and Grandma dont have twitter but they have FB. Hehehe…
And I’m in my twentys and some of my friends are teenagers. But they vote for Kellie and Derek. 🙂
Claire, it means not every teenagers voted for Zendaya. 🙂
Great explanation PH. I was only able to vote with one landline and one cell phone so only got 10 votes in. I don’t have Facebook or Twitter. I think TPTB caused this problem themselves by promoting all this Twitter business all season long. I guess I am old school and liked it better when phone votes were the only thing that counted and the judges picked the Encore dances. I am sure people who do use Twitter and Facebook enjoy it and I understand that – it’s just not me. I didn’t realize there was a problem with the voting last season either as I was able to vote for Shawn and Derek using my phones and abc.com even if it did no good.
My only complaint is the way the show handled it. I never rush to do my online voting since I know I have longer. I did my phone votes when the show started and before watching anything. I was actually watching The Voice live (hangs head in shame). Yet, this season is why I didn’t care if I watched it live or later off my DVR. All the constant manipulations I saw during the season just turned me away. I just knew I had to get my phone votes in. When I went to finally do my abc.com voting I was thrown to Facebook which did me no good as I couldn’t make an account right then and there nor did I want to, so that was the end for me. While I was extremely happy with the outcome I didn’t know at the time that it was going to work out the way it did so I was pretty upset that I was not going to get to do anything online. I guess I don’t understand and never will why the show didn’t allow more phone time. Since abc.com was down why not let the phone lines be open until 11:00 am the next morning. It was okay for me, but I do know people who don’t use the phone and only vote by abc.com. Some of these people are people who watch The Voice live (like I did, except don’t bother with phone votes which I did do), and watch DWTS off their DVR later. By that time it was too late for them to know there was a problem, and if they had they may have used their phone votes for the first time. BTW, they were Kellie and Derek fans so it turned out okay, but for those types of people (and not sure how many fans total that would account for), but The Voice is a very popular show as well where voting was also being done that night.
I can only speak for my group of friends that don’t belong to any site and have always watched DWTS and now also watch The Voice. For them The Voice has become more popular this particular season. I just think for the show to be fair they should have allowed the phone votes for a longer period of time. Not saying it would have changed a thing with the outcome, but perhaps the show itself would seem more credible in the way things were presented. As it was they just seemed not to care and it is what it is. I think that is why the show is not as popular as it once was. These people I am talking about are not the young people, but the hard core people who have watched since the first season. In talking to them they just didn’t care for what was going on this season so it wasn’t as important to watch it live as it once had been. Like I said it turned out fine in the end. jmho
As an Air Force wife stationed in England, I still watch the show. I have my own means of acquiring it to watch because I’m impatient, but I can also say that AFN airs the show the next night as well, I just don’t want to wait that long. So yes, military families stationed overseas DO have the ability to watch the show on tv, and if I remember reading it right before, AFN viewers do actually count for ratings because they have special permission to air the shows to the overseas troops. But I could be wrong. This season I didn’t vote online because I started a new job and was unable to get votes in before time expired, but since I’ve been here for at least 3 seasons I have voted in the other 2 and I have voted for my favorite couple(s) before even watching the show. But I’m not complaining about the way voting went down since I didn’t vote. I mostly watch the show for the enjoyment anyway.
@JenH – A Big Thank You to your husband for protecting our wonderful country and serving in the military. And to you as well, being a military wife has it’s challenges and can disrupt so many lives and families. So I am grateful to you as well.
Kellie has been active with the USO so I saw online many military families supporting her. Maybe some troops overseas wanted to vote for her and could not. Again, it evens the playing field so everyone not just Zendaya was impacted.
I read how Val was upset but he should ultimately be mad at himself. He did not deliver a freestyle to seal the deal. Many I saw said the same. They are both good, I was voted for so and so but now I want to vote for Kellie. I was upset during the all stars finale when no one could vote online. Think abc learned from that debacle.
Besides Zendaya fans, I do not see anyone upset whether media reports or fans.
What’s ashame is what was said about Derek not ever winning mbt #5 because of pro fanbase I think Derek is the best pro on the show, but I vote for the best dancer, and not voting for Derek is wrong if he has a beautiful dancer This is suppose to be about dancing with the stars, not dancing with the pro. I guess it is time for Derek to move on, I would hate to see him come back & get a great partner and she gets no votes because she is with Derek I love DWTS and have watchex it since season 2 Everyone on puredwts does a fantastic job and I love reading everything Thanks
I’m a first-time poster, but have been reading the posts here at Pure for a couple of seasons now. First of all, I just wanted to say thanks to Princess Heidi for the great explanation. 🙂
I’m an international viewer who watches the show online much later, so I do “blind voting” online every week, with a couple of different email accounts. I know that I don’t count in the ratings and all, but I just like feeling included in what’s happening with the show. Hence, I’d miss the ABC.com voting if they took it away.
However, towards the end of this season, I was honestly feeling quite “whatever” about who won, so I just put in my 5 votes at Facebook and left it at that. I voted for Kellie anyway, and I’m so pleased with the outcome! 🙂
Wow, PH, you really are a numbers kinda gal! You made it easy to understand. And I loved your phrase ” blinded by righteous indignation ?” I see lots of uses for that in my future! You hit the nail right on the head with that one.
Just a small annoyance for me. I am one of those grandmas (age 65) who have a Facebook account. So do many of my friends, we’ve managed a lot of high school and college “mini” reunions through FB. Your venturing to guess at what age the complexities of mastering FB got to be too difficult irked me. Otherwise I enjoy your site and 99 percent of the time agree with your commentary.
Sonja, you’re doing a bit of projecting. I never said it was “too difficult”. I said that the older one gets the less likely they are to use it, period. And I still believe that to be the truth – I think you probably agree that you are the exception more than the rule. And saying “All my friends do it” is totally anecdotal evidence.
The MAIN point of the article being, of course, that limiting the voting to facebook is IN NO WAY more detrimental to Zendaya fans than any one else. The opposite is more likely true.
I was unaware of the abc.com voting problem last season. I voted online for the DWTS 15 finale late into the night and again very early the next morning. This season, while it was a relief not to have to spend hours voting online, I do feel that the placements (4th through 1st) may have been a bit different had the abc.com voting fiasco not happened.
While I agree that the inability to power vote most likely resulted in a more “fair,” democratic, and accurate outcome this season, I think there’s something to be said about the impact of power voting and the show would be unwise to eliminate or limit it.
Yes, to have the winner be representative of the true majority opinion seems to be most “fair.” However, I find that it is also fair if the winner is someone who has the most passionate voters, who strongly inspired his/her fans to take advantage of their power to vote. I think the key word is “power”…because I think what makes these reality competition shows popular and what gets viewers REALLY invested, is the idea that you can actually have a hand in possibly creating the outcome of your choice. Your favorite may not have the majority favor, but if you care enough and are willing to put in enough effort, it might still turn out the way you want it. Your investment of time and effort might actually pay off. Again, in my opinion, that’s a big part of why people love these types of shows and why there is so much more voter participation and fervor to vote for DWTS, American Idol, etc. than for our own government elections! Yes, it gets frustrating for the fans of other contestants who don’t win the power vote-off, but somewhere down the line, the shoe will end up on the other foot and then you’ll be thankful that power voting exists.
I think it’s in the show’s best interest for viewers to CARE, so they really should make sure all of their voting procedures are in place and ready, especially online and especially on finale night.
Great post Princess Heidi!
A lot of people on the abc boards that are complaining about Kellie and Derek’s win being unfair and rigged are the same people that were telling Shawn and Derek fans last season to stop being sore losers because Melissa and Tony won fair and square, they were the better dancers, etc… Oh how the tables have turned!
In last season’s finale, I didn’t have any problems voting on the abc website for Shawn and Derek, but I was aware that there were many people who were having problems voting for them. If that was the case, I wish abc would have done away with the online voting like they did this season. Perhaps, the results would have been different.
I think that Kellie and Derek won fair and square. The fact that they won the Twitter encore dance is a testament to that. In the end, I think that people connected to Kellie and Derek more than with the other couples and their freestyle pretty much sealed the deal.
Excellent post PH, really informative and well explained. Frankly, I think that if anything, Derek’s fans could take little zwaggers in an online battle with some numbers to spare.
Having said that, as a computer programmer I am shocked that DWTS has online voting problems during the finale 2 years in a row; believe it or not, it is not that difficult to predict the voting pattern and stress test the software/hardware in advance, which clearly has not been done.
I really feel that producers of the show lost their touch with reality (no pun intended) and in their quest for the “younger audience” they forgot to actually do their job and produce the show. The result is obvious – the show is in the decline and I doubt will survive much longer.
Yep. that about sums it up. It would have been nice if ABC had put a note on the website itself saying voting was down…
These are fabulous posts. Very insightful and truthful.
I vote to eliminate on-line voting. Internet voting with satellite voting is torture.
One question. If you use FB voting, who sees it? DO all your friends see that “Carole voted for whomever” like 5 times? Is it posted on your newsfeed? I wouldn’t vote on FB because I was unsure of who saw the activity.
Thanks for wonderful and INTELLIGENT analysis of an absurd system. Maybe ABC did see the light after all!
Thanks, Carole. As for who sees it? I’m about as far from a facebook expert as you can get. 🙂 I think they see it – but really not sure.
Abc deliberately took the vote on line down for one simple reason to block the vote for Zendaya. Why do we know this ? Because of twitter.zendaya never automatically won twitter it was a protracted due to the overnight vote. Twitter analysis clearly shows on more than one occasion the twitter vote went to Kellie early in the first 3 hours of voting but the longer the vote went on Zendayas fans would stay on longer and trend. When abc took away the on line vote they went with only an early vote and that why Kellie won A fair way would have been to tell the fans at the beginning of the show abc would be shutting down the on line vote .
Latte, nice try but no. They only benefit by Zendaya winning, they have NO reason to make it so Kellie would win. Occam’s Razor – simplest explanation is likely correct. Your huge conspiracy theory is flawed – your girl lost, best accept it. Just like I had to accept when Shawn lost last season. There are explanations for both, but neither include them “blocking” a vote for Zendaya. Ridiculous.
And we were saying (and have been saying for years) that twitter is not a reliable way to measure who’s going to win the show. It never has been. Kellie won the last twitter vote because of the freestyle, plain and simple. When the voting was limited to only facebook and five votes, most people used their spare time to twitter vote for Kellie. Prior to that, most Kellie fans weren’t spending that much time on twitter because most Derek fans told them to spend their time voting where it counted, not on twitter. Besides – Kellie was close to beating Zendaya every week – they were not landslide victories. When you look at real graphs and not Zendaya-fan altered ones, you can see that. In the last week, the superior freestyle tilted the scale in her favor. And maybe Zendaya’s fans got complacent and certain she would win (just like Val and Zendaya themselves) and slacked off.
EVERYONE had an equal shot the way it was done – voting early or late made no difference, none of the ABC.com votes were counted. NONE.
@latte, but Brooke explicitly said the site was down so vote through phone. Text and Facebook. Zendaya fans heard the same instructions. It was fair.
My guess is that Kellie lead every vote category. The fam were overconfident.
People are hypocrites. This whole post and comments are all made by Kellie supporters. Personally, I liked all four finalists and would have been happy with either of them winning. I’m not a Zendaya supporter because 16 is a little too young. Ballroom dancing can be very passionate and romantic. She couldn’t fully commit to that so sometimes I didn’t even bother to watch her dance.
However, I will say that something wasn’t right. I am probably the only one on the planet who will look at this unbias.
Every season super fans create multiple accounts on ABC or FB. They use any phone they can find. Thats nothing new. It’s all about the fans. Thats what the show is about. Fan voting.
Sometimes the best dancers don’t win. Again, it’s all about voting. If people are making additional accounts, asking neighbors, friends relatives to vote and borrowing some strangers phone on the street to vote for that particular person then clearly that person is the most popular. That person wins because thats what fans do.
If an A list celeb like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Beyonce, Jennifer Aniston.. etc etc went on the show, they’d win even if they weren’t very good. Why? Because of their fan base and people would go nuts doing whatever they can to get them to win.
Thats the name of the game. You may not like it, but thats how it goes unless DWTS changes it.
I know a lot of people don’t like voting on FB for many reasons. How else can they vote? Phone, but that may not be enough for them to try to get their favorite to win.
I also don’t understand why they didn’t count the ABC votes. If you were able to vote, why not count it? It’s still a vote. No matter who it was for.
They say it’s fair, but how? What if Aly or Jacoby needed an extra vote or two to make it to the final 2? This isn’t just about Kellie and Zendaya, it’s about them also.
DWTS has no right to dictate or try to control who the fans should vote for or how. If you don’t like it, change the rules.
I knew this season was bogus when Zendaya didn’t get the encore. The ONLY way to vote for an encore is through twitter. People loved Kellie’s freestyle. I’m sure her and Derek, their fans, friends, relatives and celeb friends all tweeted. I’m sure the same for Zendaya and Val. However, there is NO way possible to beat out 2.6 million followers. It’s just not possible. I seen an interview with Aly and Mark saying Zendaya will get the hip hop dance because they said and I quote “you can’t compete with her on twitter. She can get anything she wants and win everything on twitter” Even they acknowledged that.
Who knows how it would have turned out. Maybe the same, but you cannot deny for a split second that something fishy wasn’t going on.
How people call this the most fair season is completely mind boggling.
I will not believe for a sec that they couldn’t fix the ABC voting issue. All they did was redirect you to FB.
You can’t compete with Zendaya’s fan base. There is no doubt what so ever that Zendaya was robbed.
Like I said, I’m not a Zendaya supporter. She’s too young to be on the show IMO. I am just not a supporter of bogus TV.
Here is something else I’d like to say:
I don’t remember a voting issue for season 15 finals. I remember the east coast couldn’t vote because of the storm. People thought that was unfair for Sabrina.
I truly believe Melissa and Tony won fairly. I believe Derek messed it up for Shawn. I don’t think people liked that they were breaking the rules, but turning every dance into a freestyle. While everyone else followed the rules. It was almost cheating and I don’t think the fans liked that.
Carrie Ann said it best when she told them that she was disappointed they didn’t follow the rules for one of their last dances (can’t remember which) because she said the points were important. They probably were and a single point could have changed the outcome.
This is MVHO.
Awful wordy and long winded and whiny for someone with no bias. Spare me – you’re just as biased as anyone else is. Here’s a hint – if you’re NOT a Zendaya fan, don’t spent 500 paragraphs complaining about the outcome of this season. You give yourself away.
It certainly is possible to beat Zendaya’s 2.6 million followers (such comments DO reveal you to be the Zen fan you are) – the show is watched by 13 million of which, 2.6 is a mere fraction. Face it – the general viewing audience liked Kellie’s dance better, so she won the encore. Period. Frankly, I would bet that Zen’s fans got complacent and thought they had it in the bag. Wrong. Kellie was nipping at Zen’s heels every week in the twitter contests – Zen was not winning by a mile.
Zendaya was not robbed. Her fans were robbed of spamming her to victory regardless of what the average viewer wanted. This is what the result looks like when it’s “one person one vote”. Kellie won, Zendaya LOST. Deal with it. I had to deal when the better dancer lost last season, you have to deal when the better dancer won this one. 😀