Originally Posted by mossy2103:
“In the absence of any figures from previous years, I'll take that post as being supposition and guesswork.
But one thing confuses me - you mention the final stages, surely (for SCD6) it would have been the public voting putting two couples into the dance-off anyway?”
The figures leaked last year were pretty accurately reflected in what subsequently happened on-screen. Lisa and Rachel leap-frogged each other in the dance-offs, each time paired up with someone the judges could - and did - off, to ensure their favourites reached the final.
It is pretty obvious that the producers and the judges colluded to protect their favourites - because they knew how the public were voting and therefore could mark up Rachel and Lisa and mark down other contestants who were more popular (Austin, Christine). It isn't the public voting that consigns people to the dance-off: it's a
combination of the public's and judges' votes. Therefore the producers could reasonably work out how to score contestants to ensure Rachel and Lisa were safe.
It all came undone in the semi-final, of course, when they tried to stitch up Tom, the public's remaining favourite. They botched it up by creating a situation where he could never be saved by the viewers.

Hence the three-person final we saw where the public finally had their say.