News on problem with American Idol voting system

Why the real winner of the American Idol is the voting answering machines. Communications expert Lawrence Harte explains the problem and provides a solution.

(PRWEB) May 15, 2004 --And the real winner of American Idol is: The Fastest Answering Machine?

Have you been wondering why the voting results of American Idol seem so different than expected? The answer is the voting system is fundamentally flawed.

Imagine if you have 3 long lines of people who are voting for their candidate and they are handing their votes to a single vote counter (the telephone answering machine). One line is voting for candidate 1 (telephone line 1), one line votes for candidate 2 (telephone line 2), and one line votes for candidate 3 (telephone line 3). The winner should be the longest line (largest number of votes). If all the votes are counted, this would be true.

Now imagine that all the lines are so long that not everyone gets to vote (the busy signals). Within 2 hours, each voting answering machine has collected its maximum number of votes and the one with the most number of votes is the answering machine that answered the fastest. If the answering machines work at approximately the same rate, the number of votes collected will be approximately the same resulting in very close races ("and this is the closest American Idol vote yet"!).

A simple solution is to have one line (one telephone number) where everyone is given fair access to vote (one line with a mix of voters). When the voting answering machine answers, it says "Press 1 for candidate 1, press 2 for candidate 2 and press 3 for candidate 3." Even if many voters are blocked (busy signals), the mix of voters who get through will be a fair representation of the actual vote.

As an expert witness for companies, I give my opinions to the validity of claims based on factual evidence. The evidence in this case is that the design of the voting system cannot provide accurate results if the number of voters exceeds the capacity of the answering devices.

Lawrence Harte is a telecommunications expert with over 29 years of experience and has authored more than 50 books. You can find out more information about him at www.LawrenceHarte.com or you can email him at lharte@althos.com.

If you think the voting system should be changed to be fair, please forward this on to a few of your friends (it's only fair).

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