Did They Doublecheck the Votes From Palm Beach County?

Props to silver-throated behemoth Ruben Studdard (who stands 6'4" and weighs 360 pounds according to Fox News Channel) for winning last night's American Idol competition. He beat out Clay Aiken, who appeared throughout the competition as an equally talented yet slightly disconcerting mix of a Martin Short character and a country-club version of David Bowie.

Most interesting about last night's show was the closeness of the final tally, with only about 130,000 votes out of 24 million cast separating the two. That's a presidentially slim margin of victory and it further feeds a sense that we live in an age of indeterminacy and/or inconclusiveness (I can't make up my mind). When not faced with elections in which the actual winner is up for grabs, we're encountering wars that are won but never over, murders that are never solved (e.g. Jon Benet), and on and on.

Comments

[Jim]

I do believe the 130,000 figure is probably correct. Based on the fact that Ryan Seacrest actually said they were only seprated by about .28% - out of 24 million that equals 67,400 votes. I'm probably getting the exact percentage wrong but it was less than 1 % or 240,000 votes. So my suspicion, mathematically, is that it was probably closer to 130,000.

[steve]

I found that whole American Idol voting thing very confusing. I wanted to vote for Ruben, but I think I might have accidentally picked Pat Buchanan... 😉

[James Merritt]

I still haven't seen an official Fox release yet, but the latest AP feed has a paragraph that pointedly mentions Seacrest's back-to-back mis-statements, and confirms the 130,000 figure. Still, that implies only 100 or so extra Ruben votes per town, 1000-2000 per city: a remarkably narrow gap.

The same AP story reports that more people watched the Am Idol finale this year than watched the Oscars (and the majority of them also seem to have voted)!

I did visit the Am Idol website. I couldn't find any definitive information on the vote count, nor a "blue/red" map of states (too bad!). But there was an online poll that asks, "did America get it right"? And the current results, after a six-figure vote total so far, are exactly 50-50.

While checking things out, I tried to learn how "American Candidate" is doing. It appears to be dead in the water at the moment, but the would-be producer is still hopeful and claims auditions may start in September. I found a number of links that chronicle the whole story so far on this interesting "politainment" enterprise at http://www.sirlinksalot.net/americancandidate.html.

[Sean Kirby]

The vote was also presidential in it's perfect demographic split - white, cute, polite midwestern versus big, black and southern. I want to see that red-blue map someone mentioned earlier.

[Sean]

Which of the 2000 presidential candidates was big, black and southern? Nader? Which was from the midwest?

[James Merritt]

Clay was, of course, from North Carolina, while Ruben was from Alabama's "205," and both men expressed pride last night and often throughout the series, in their respective southern roots.

"Cute, polite, and Yankee" (not midwestern, alas) was probably Julia, from Connecticut. She got into the top 10 but was eliminated fairly early on. Carmen Rasmusen was from Utah, which doesn't really count as midwestern, either, but I'm sure she appealed to that part of the country. The singing Marine, Joshua Gracin, resides in CA.

The only real "midwesterner" was Charles Grigsby from OH, and I don't think he fits the demographic profile that Mr. Kirby had in mind. In fact, given the contestant mix, I don't know if sweeping demographic generalizations are very useful, although I too would love to see some statistics based on the final results.

[Douglas Fletcher]

God, that's an awful show. For some reason it comes on right when I'm falling asleep in front of the tube so I've never had so many awful versions of Burt Bacharach tunes drifting through my semi-conscious brain. It's almost as bad as waking up to Oprah, I swear.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps you were watching American Idle instead.

[Jon H]

James Merritt wrote: "the twin mountains of cash to be earned by each man will certainly be more substantial, and are bound to bring more of a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction to both contestants"

I'd be *quite* surprised if either person gets more than a relatively meager amount of cash. Half the royalties will go to the songwriter, and you can bet they won't be writing their own songs. Simon Cowell and the American Idol producers will probably take most of the rest.

I wouldn't be surprised if each singer nets under $200k. Not bad, but not really a 'mountain' compared to the gross.

[Jim]

BTW Josh Gracin was originally from Westland, Michigan, where I grew up, coincidentally. I think he lives in CA because that's where his Marine base is located.

I don't think demographics are very useful, but to some extent the results of this should give pause to the folks that push the notion that everyone in Hollywood or the entertainment business in general has to be unrealistically thin or good looking. Granted there's always been ugly rock stars, mostly men (very few unattractive women in show business or the music business by comparison), but the way this contest has been portrayed (especially with it's appeal to young people) it would be expected that image would play a significant role; after all people like Britney Spears and N-Sync owe part of their sucess to their looks. None of the folks in the top three fit this show biz image. I think it truly boiled down to raw talent, and both finalists had it. Indeed, all the 'pretty' people were eliminated first, mainly because they just weren't the better singers in the competition.

[Anonymous]

you would do well to read the end of certainty! and/or the end of certainty in economics 😀

[chuck]

what is actually disconcerting is the nuumber of people who took the time to vote for that crap but couldn't make it to the polls in 2000.

[James Merritt]

My videotape of last night's finale shows host Ryan Seacrest saying that the initial vote gap between Studdard and Aiken was given as "13,000" (not the 130,000 reported here and on the AP newswire), but that the revised numbers from the producers' accountants show a much smaller gap of just 1,335. I listened to Seacrest and checked out the closed captioning, which agreed with my ears. So, whether 1,335 is actually the correct number, I believe that this is what Seacrest told America.

Has Fox or the production company issued a definitive press release that gets the numbers right?

If the lower tally of the preference gap is correct, that means that only about 1 extra vote in his favor in every 20,000 made the difference for Ruben: one or two people in every TOWN, a dozen or so in every CITY, a high-school classroom in every STATE. As far as public opinion goes, that is essentially a dead heat.

As Simon Cowell said, moments before the final results were announced, the REAL competition would take place at the cash register, since Clay's and Ruben's first records would be released during the same week. Score 1 for free markets over the zero-sum game of democratic elections, since the twin mountains of cash to be earned by each man will certainly be more substantial, and are bound to bring more of a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction to both contestants, than last night's statistical tie.

[James Merritt]

Chuck says, "what is actually disconcerting is the nuumber of people who took the time to vote for that crap but couldn't make it to the polls in 2000."

Of course, many thousands (millions?) who voted last night would have been turned away from the polls in 2000, on account of their young age. Even so, over 105 million votes were cast in the 2000 election, and only 24 million votes were cast in the American Idol event (despite the fact that more people were eligible to vote, could vote multiple times, and could vote electronically from their homes, unlike the ostensible situation in "real" political voting).

I believe the key to getting more people to vote on something is simply to convince them that they are invested in the outcome, and to make the mechanical process of voting as easy as possible. American Idol certainly made game attempts in both areas, though I hasten to add that the lines were jammed for a solid 75 minutes before I was successful in casting my family's vote by telephone -- perhaps more votes would have been cast, had the electronic mechanisms had more capacity, or the voting winder were wider. Here in California, the telephone company (SBC, formerly Pacific Bell) runs an ad that brags about the company's capacity to handle the massive traffic caused by phone-in contests. After last night, they should either pull the ad, or revise it to have Tommy Lee Jones' voice say, "Yeah, we can handle the Rad Boys, but we're going to have to work harder to handle Ruben and Clay." [There's a SNL or MadTV skit in that one, I think. I wonder if the writers or producers check out Hit&Run? :-)]

I have to say that, as Seacrest was announcing how the voting in various states went, I kept expecting to see the famous "blue/red" map of the US flash on screen to illustrate his remarks. I haven't been to the website yet; maybe they have one there.

[James Merritt]

Speaking of voting and "real" elections, whatever happened to the "American Candidate" reality show idea that had originally been pitched at FX but went looking for a home after they passed on it?

[Taz]

Geez, Nick you mean to tell me you actually watched this piece of crap. You're a stronger man than I.

[James Merritt]

James Merritt wrote: "the twin mountains of cash to be earned by each man will certainly be more substantial, and are bound to bring more of a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction to both contestants"

Jon H wrote: "I wouldn't be surprised if each singer nets under $200k. Not bad, but not really a 'mountain' compared to the gross."

Over here in Santa Cruz, we have "mountains" that reach as high as 2000 feet. Little more than foothills compared to Everest, or even the Sierras, I suppose. But we call 'em "mountains" just the same. Sometimes, their peaks are even snow-capped.

The fact that there is a bigger mountain out there is no reason not to appreciate your own. $200000 is a chunk-o-change -- four or more years' pay for most people -- and it certainly seems like a mountain by that measure, even if Simon Fuller may get $2Mil of $20Mil. That being said, I hope that Ruben and Clay do even better. I know from firsthand experience how larcenous and exploitive the music business is and can be. One only needs to look at the recent RIAA vs. netradio and Napster/kazaa nastiness to get a good whiff at the industrial-strength greed and pettiness involved.

I wonder if anyone will do a story, ten years from now, on the "bottom line" for Am Idol winners. Who made out, who didn't, and why...? Probably fewer people would watch that show than watched the original Idols telecasts. But those who did would get an education.

[Rubin Laurie]

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DATE: 05/20/2004 01:43:10
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