Simple really - Noone votes anymore, not since X Factor became a joke, and people realised there votes didnt matter when the ridiculous decisions are made on deadlock, and of course the phone voting scandal.

Id say the only people that still vote in high numbers were those voting for christopher, and i think we all know the age bracket and location
in the first 7 weeks it was a laugh, a joke and then....

When Ela and James were bottom 2, everyone else started voting in their numbers to save the TALENT

to me it makes complete sense, but just my opinion

Yep you're right. People shouldn't vote, i don't vote. But in the end lots said i'll vote just because James is so talented forget all the fixing and screw overs we've had before. Chris fans obviously didn't put much thought into the specifics of voting, they just voted for Chris because they liked or felt sorry for him.

this has already been said a thousand times tho
you`re right tho James was my fave and i didn`t vote until late on tbh

No, people voted for James to stop Chris from winning.

You're right.

That's not true, because he got votes after Chris went.

Because as we all know, the entire world is against Chris, and people would spend money just to ensure that he doesn't win a reality tv competition which has no relevance to their lives whatsoever beyond what they invest into it.

I think you are right OP and that in the first few weeks the vote was very low.
Losing Ella when Baloney was still in woke people up a bit. Then James did a vote-pulling performance of Let's Get It On, which was clearly the song for him to repeat in the final.

Add the fact that Maloney = Lucifer and Menan is Satan you've got a brilliant reason to vote him off.

I agree. I only vote in the later stages if there's someone left I like. I loved Ella at the start and thought she'd be safe and make the final along with James and Jahmene.

Looks like Chris fans were voting consistently throughout but as more viewers started to vote (and not for Chris) he lost his advantage. He and Union J were very close for the 4th place.

Makes complete sense to me too, and it's not without precedent. 4 out of 9 Finals has featured a Liverpool act.

Because the voting has always been relatively low during the live heats and Liverpool has a population of almost a half million, it doesn't need a particularly vast army of scousers on repeat dial in order to secure an additional 100,000 votes, and propel their act to the Final.

If a guy from a smalltown competes, and his town has a population of 40,000 (like mine does), and the same proportion voted five times as in my example with Christopher (based on 1-in-25), then that would raise only 8000 votes.

As the heats gave way to the quarter and semi-finals Christopher's vote share shrank because a wider national voting sample emerged as more people voted. This happens with any RATM or VFTW vote too, they always run out of steam by that stage.