Yahoo!’s wacky entertainment news/gossip site OMG! linked to a New York Times article about possible vote swaying by Kris Allen fans.
From the NYT piece:
Representatives of AT&T helped fans of Mr. Allen at the two Arkansas events by providing instructions on how to send 10 or more text messages at the press of a single button, known as power texts. Power texts have an exponentially greater effect on voting than do single text messages or calls to the show’s toll-free phone lines. The efforts appear to run afoul of “American Idol†voting rules in two ways. The show broadcasts an on-screen statement at the end of each episode warning that blocks of votes cast using “technical enhancements†that unfairly influence the outcome of voting can be thrown out.
And the show regularly states that text voting is open only to AT&T subscribers and is subject to normal rates.
I guess we really don’t know if this impacted the result or not, since I haven’t heard by how many votes Allen beat Adam Lambert. I would imagine that because so many votes were cast, it wouldn’t have impacted the overall decision, but probably put a bit more distance between Allen and Lambert.
If there’s an update to this story, we’ll follow up.
