American Idol Scandal ?

It seems like every season there are people talking about an American Idol voting scandal (or at least what people believe is a scandal).

In season 4 there have been two American Idol scandals that people are talking about:

The Primetime story about Paula Abdul having a relationship with Corey Clark. The story was covered on many different shows but by reading Primetime's own forum, no one seemed to really care.

That Scott Savol avoided being eliminated for weeks while more talented contestants like Constantine Maroulis and Anware Robinson were sent home. Scott was believed to be the worst contestant by many news papers and web sites that stated his looks and talent were not American Idol material. One site even had a vote for the worst campaign to keep Scott in the competition which gained a lot of news media attention.

In season 3 there was another American Idol voting scandal people were talking about:

The 3 divas, Fantasia Barrino, La Toya London and Jennifer Hudson, ended up in the bottom three and Jennifer Hudson went home. This shook viewers up because they could not believe that three of the best were in the bottom three. Even Fantasia, who became the American Idol was among the bottom three.

So each season it appears to the viewers that there is another American Idol scandal.

But is there any wrong doing on American Idol's part or is this just America's votes?

Truth Revealed

Fact: American Idol announced they could detect power dialers and were eliminating votes placed by them.

The Truth: That is not exactly true.

American Idol can tell if a huge number of votes (I.E. calls) come from a single number and might assume that it's a power dialer. But what happens if you can manually get lots of votes through?

American Idol can't tell the difference between a modem dialing them or you dialing them ... because there is no difference! Speedy vote disables the modem carrier (that noise you hear when you use your modem to log onto your ISP).

It's impossible to tell if a computer is calling you or a person. When the phone line is picked up, the computer does not send a message "hey I'm a computer calling you"

The only thing American Idol can tell is how many calls are made from your phone number, how long you stay on the phone line when you listen to the "Thank you for voting ...", and how quickly you call back.

Any software program that uses your modem as a dialer can vary all of these things.

So how do they tell? Magic? ESP?

Are you ready for the next part of this American Idol scandal?

Why does it matter how you place your American Idol votes?

• Should American Idol tell you, you can't use your computer to dial?
  
• Should American Idol tell you, you can't use your phone's redial button to place votes?
  
• Should American Idol tell you, you must use only AT&T phones to call?
  
• How about that you can only call to vote while standing on your head?

It does not matter how you place the votes. What matters is how many you place and if they are going to keep saying "vote as often as you like" well guess what? Vote as often as you like means that you can place as many votes for American Idol contestants as you like, doesn't it?

Speedy vote is not a power dialer but is a software product that uses your computer's modem as a redial button. It detects the busy signals and will hang up and try again until it gets through and places your votes.

Speedy vote will only place as many American Idol votes as you tell it to and it will only vote for the Idol you want it to.

It's time to put the voting power in your hands. Don't spend hours hitting the redial button on your phone. Don't spend hours listening to busy signals.

Speedy Vote was created so you can vote for your favorite American Idol while do other things more deserving of your time.

Don't let your favorite American Idol go home