User talk:Aolson1740

Issues with the Canadian Idol voting process
The following link may help to better understand this article The Canadian Idol voting process

Confidentiality vs. voting integrity
It is generally in the voter's best interest for their vote and personal information to remain confidential. Most voting processes respect your confidentiality but have also takens steps in order to protect the integrity of the voting process, restricting voters to only one vote. In order to do so a voter's name or some other form of personally identifiable information may be required to cast a vote, another option is to assign each voter a registration number. A vote would only be counted once for any given piece of identifiable information. That information would remain confidential and it would not usually need to be directly connected to the voter's choice of candidate.

The Canadian Idol voting process allows for voters to remain anonymous but invites voters to abuse the system. As there is no personal requirement in doing so, there is no limit to the number of times one may cast their vote for any given contestant. In addition, the voting process allows for quick and easy recasting of votes. On needs only to pick up any phone, wait for a dial tone, then dial the toll-free number (or hit redial) and wait to see if the call goes through. If the call goes through the vote will be cast. Although I'm not certain about this, I doubt that a voter needs to stay on the line to hear out the prerecorded message thanking the voter for voting for the given contestant. Instead they could just hang up immediately and call back to cast more votes.

The only other limitations to this process is the number of lines set up for each contestant and whether or not those lines are all busy when a call is made by a voter.

Extremism
Due to the hype behind Canadian Idol, the some of the more enthusiastic fans are more than likely willing to abuse any of these flaws in the voting system.

Due to the fact that payphones are useable for voting, voters could find a payphone and hog it for hours (i.e. the whole voting window), inconveniencing anyone else who might want to use it. The most extreme voters would tell anyone wanting to use the payphone to wait or go find another one as they attempt to get through and cast their vote (or votes...).

Personal experience
The following is an personal experience which should illustrate the extremes people go to to cast their votes on Canadian Idol.

I go to Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland. There are payphones set up around campus in each of the buildings. One night I worked on an assignment in the library until midnight when it closes. Upon leaving the library I noticed that there were a bunch of people using each of the payphones in the entranceway to the library. Instead of fellow university students these people were older or middle-aged women. At first I thought they might be hobos attempting to get coins to fall out of coin return slot, then I noticed that they were just dialing and redialing numbers at midnight on university campus. This freaked me out so I didn't stop walking. To get back to residence, I took the tunnels which connect each of the campus buildings and, in these tunnels, came across more people at each of the payphones (fortunately these people were university girls instead). My curiosity overcame my discomfort and I asked two of these girls (in an area where there are only two payphones) what they were doing. They told me they were voting for Canadian Idol. I told them that I was going to bed and kept going. I figured its their choice to lose sleep and stick around in the empty university buildings over something as trivial as casting a vote for Canadian Idol. I kept walking and, on my way, saw more people in the University Center building and in the Science building at all of the payphones. All of them voting for Canadian Idol on an otherwise lifeless nighttime university campus.

Unfairness
Usually each voter is able to cast their votes, due to limitations to the number of votes (one per candidate) and due to the regional availability of polling stations for registered voters. The Canadian Idol voting system however makes it difficult or impossible for some voters to cast their own vote, due to the likeliness of receiving a busy signal at peak times when calling. This likeliness is increased by enthusiastic fans calling repeatedly in order to place multiple votes. This is considerably unfair to anyone who is not successful in placing their vote and the chances of people getting through are only increased by recommendations to call at non-peak hours and by having multiple lines available.

Despite any of these flaws, perhaps it is in the best interest of Canadian Idol not to address them. These flaws can only increase the number of total votes cast for any of contestants if anything, possibly contributing furthur to the hype and publicity surrounding Canadian Idol. It is theoretically possible that this would allow it to seem that more people may be interested in Canadian Idol (enough to spend the time to vote) than there actually are.