NBC’s "The Voice" disclosed a voting irregularity this week, and talked about the problem on Wednesday’s show, reports EW.com’s Inside TV.
Fans had trouble voting online and via text messaging through the vote-tallying company Telescope, the story notes. Nevertheless, even if the problems had been solved, the outcome — which contestants were eliminated — wouldn’t have changed, the network said.
"Tonight we’d like to be completely upfront with you,” host Carson Daly said. “We noticed some inconsistencies with this week’s texting and online voting.”
Telescope CEO Jason George said in a statement, "Our system caught an inconsistency in a portion of this week’s voting data. For fairness, those votes have been removed from Monday and Tuesday’s results, but we want to assure fans and artists alike that this in no way affected the outcome for any team.”
Telescope also manages voting for other shows, including "The X Factor" and "American Idol."
How do you catch an inconsistency anyway?
How can they really be sure the problems, “in no way affected the outcome…”. I’m sorry but this sounds like a coverup. If they want to maintain fan faith in the voting, they need to bring back all contestants and have another vote. Until they do, anyone whose “favorite” got eliminated will think they cheated. And once fans start thinking the voting could (or was) rigged, they will lose fans very quickly. This could be the start of a very slippery slope downhill unless they re-do the voting. The network has to remember, “It’s not what you have done but what people THINK you have done.”
How can they really be sure the problems, “in no way affected the outcome…”. I’m sorry but this sounds like a coverup. If they want to maintain fan faith in the voting, they need to bring back all contestants and have another vote. Until they do, anyone whose “favorite” got eliminated will think they cheated. And once fans start thinking the voting could be (or was) rigged, they will lose fans very quickly. This could be the start of a very slippery slope downhill unless they re-do the voting. The network has to remember, “It’s not what you have done but what people THINK you have done.”
NBC could actually benefit by bringing all the contestants back for another vote, because NBC could extend “The Voice” (one of NBC’s few ratings hits), by one additional week in May.
It would also be interesting to compare the two voting results.