Thursday, May 25, 2006

American Idol vote count rant

Rant Follows. What is it with people comparing American Idol vote totals to presidential election vote totals? I think Saturday Night Live did it. Then on the final of American Idol they had to tell viewers that 63 million votes were counted. More than have voted for any American President. So What? The comparison is Absurd. Lets review. 1 Anyone can vote for America Idol! No age limit, no citizenship requirement. 2 You can vote as often as you want for American Idol! 3 You can't compare TOTAL votes for American Idol vs votes for ONE presidential candidate. So 63 million votes were received by American Idol. I will take a swag and say 53% voted for Taylor and 47% voted for Katherine. That would be about 33 million for Taylor and 29 million for Katherine. In the last Presidential election 62 million PEOPLE voted for George Bush and 59 million PEOPLE voted for John Kerry. Throw in other fringe candidates and a total of 122 million people voted in the last presidential election. Way MORE people voted for George Bush or even John Kerry than voted for an American Idol finalist. My wife voted 22 times for the American Idol final! Since most people probably voted multiple times that means the number of people that voted for either idol was probably no more than 15 million. So lets stop all this stupid comparison of American Idol votes vs Presidential Election votes. Rant Over.