# American Idol - Delayed eliminations!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-idol-delayed-eliminations/1028913>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** reality-or-game-show\
**Created:** [March 31, 2026, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-idol-delayed-eliminations/1028913 "2026-03-31T16:00:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DaveRaver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daveraver/32/1078_2.png) [@DaveRaver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaveRaver)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2026, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-idol-delayed-eliminations/1028913/1 "2026-03-31T16:00:09Z")

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Last night, the Top 14 contestants on American Idol competed in a live show, with a live vote. The plan was for 2 contestants to be eliminated at the end of the show, but because the votes could not be accurately tabulated in time, the results won’t be announced for another week!

Did they create too many voting methods to be quickly tabulated over a commercial break? In the old days, you just called a phone number, but now there are five ways to vote: on the official website, by SMS text, on Facebook, on Instagram and on TikTok. How will they fix this next time?

Will two contestants have to rehearse all week, only to be eliminated at the start of show, or will they secretly be told ahead of time, to spare them?

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**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2026, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-idol-delayed-eliminations/1028913/2 "2026-04-01T14:01:40Z")

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I think they took on more than they could handle with the new voting methods. IMHO, everyone should get to vote once. Why should you be able to vote 10 times? I never understood that.

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**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2026, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-idol-delayed-eliminations/1028913/3 "2026-04-01T15:14:24Z")

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Creating Drama would be my guess.

I’m highly suspicious of these shows. But that’s just me.

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**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2026, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-idol-delayed-eliminations/1028913/4 "2026-04-01T19:25:51Z")

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> [@DaveRaver](#):
>
> because the votes could not be accurately tabulated in time, the results won’t be announced for another week!

Right. You have to watch another show, and another set of commercials to see the results.

Hardly a new trick – back in the 1950’s, Saturday at movies showed film that often ended with a cliff-hanger “… to be continued” next week. But they were honest enough to call them ‘serials’, and we all knew about that when we went.

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**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2026, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-idol-delayed-eliminations/1028913/5 "2026-04-01T23:23:40Z")

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Aren’t the winners already selected, and the show is just for..well, ‘show’? All this folderol about voting is just to keep the audience interested.