Emergency Poll Termination

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

In Idol history, this has only happened once.

It's something that I hope will never happen again.

A contestant contacted me, asking me to look at their votes. Nothing big, just a routine, "could you check this out?"

So, I started doing that, in the process figured that I would take a look at the rest of them as well - and discovered *a bunch* of brand new accounts voting. I've contacted the person they were voting for, and it only affected one of the four polls. But several of these accounts have also voted during the two previous polls. In the first one, they came close to impacting the results, but did not. In the second, they did. I have contacted the person who was eliminated that week and offered them a place back in the game.

I do not believe the contestant was involved in this.

Pretend that I increased the font on that to a million, and wrote it 50 times.

Heck, there is a chance that all of the accounts are "real people". However, it was a number that made me uncomfortable accepting the results.

It could have very well been one friend who got overly excited, wanting to help. It doesn't matter. If it effects the results, then something has to be done.

I do believe in the integrity of the poll, and it was compromised. Which is why I made the decision to shut down the Week 14 poll and void the affected elimination from Week 13.

I am very sorry. Week 15 will start with 8 contestants as of tomorrow. Perhaps 9 if the person negatively impacted accepts the invitation to return.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled, whatever, already in progress.