It's apparent from some of the comments on the SCD threads that people are able to vote as many times as they like for their 'favourite'.

I wonder if we mightn't achieve a more realistic and balanced result if the voting rights could be restricted in some way to just a single vote per device, be that a landline, mobile, text, email, online, Twitter or whatever.

In this day and age of electronic digital expertise I don't think such a thing is beyond the wit of man.

Opinions?

I don't mind the voting format although these people who say they've voted 60 odd times for whatever celebrity clearly have more money than sense.

Maybe they should restrict it but im glad for online because I voted by 90 times for Jay and would have voted more had not been for the phone number didnt work for me

How on earth did you manage that?

I used my first three votes for Kellie, Jay and Georgia and didn't bother voting again as I reckoned each one of them would be worthy winners.

I do struggle with some of the fanaticism around here.

It evens out.

Nah...if they did restrict it people would just find away around it anyway and as it stands, there isn't hung stopping fans of anyone else voting enmasse too.

But some celebs seem to have more fanatical fans, Jay being an example. The levels of devotion border on bat-sh*t crazy.

I think some people are just a little bit sad really. Each to their own, but why anyone would want to vote for someone who was always going to win 90 times is lost on me?

On the face of it a good idea and I have wondered this - but the SCD website currently allows 3 votes per device and if it were one vote per landline how would a number of people in the same house vote if no mobile phones (I do know some older folk who do not have mobile phones).

Most certainly. With the passport number so you definitely can't vote again.
They shoukdnalso forbid family membefs and people from the same regikn if the contestants vote for them. So if you're from the same region as a celebrity you can vote only for the rest.
Or even better theybcan distribute each region with a number of celebrities as the elections.
What a fun that would be.

It's not per device, you can log in and out as much as you like on the same one.

As they do not publish the results I do not pay to vote as it seems a little underhand, there's no reason not to publish the vote percent of the finals at least.
But I just cannot fathom wanting to vote hundreds of times for someone, I do not know what crosses their minds, for what exactly? It bemuses me.

I use my 3 free votes most weeks. I only ever phone up to vote in the final and even then only if I feel very strongly about a couple. That did not happen this year.

But if people are so obsessive/passionate/weird* they want to vote 100 times then good luck to them

*delete as appropriate

That never crossed my mind.

Don't think I could be bothered though.

IIRC correctly someone said earlier they gave votes to everyone. Eh? Why bother then as it won't affect the overall outcome

I think it was everyone except Katie in the first round of the final (one online vote each to Jay, Kellie and Georgia) but we may be talking about a different poster.

I presume the logic behind the three votes per BBC ID is so parents can let their children vote without having to get them a BBC ID.

It is quite easy to have several BBC IDs but the number of people doing so will be only a small proportion of the total number of votes and quite likely balanced between the various contestants anyway.

How do you define region and how do you identify region? Even the CLI of a landline phone number does not identify location with complete certainty. Someone from the larger regions would lose many more potential votes than others. Do you stop Scots living in London voting for a Scottish contestant?

What if you have no passport and would the BBC get access to passport details to verify it is a valid number?

I can imagine enthusiastic children getting their parents' and perhaps grandparents' passport numbers.

I get so fed up seeing this comment all over the SCD forum. For goodness sake, why do you and so many others maintain that Jay was 'always going to win'? Is it precisely because of the mass voting by the teen-fans that he was 'always going to win'? If so, then my suggestion as the OP of this thread must surely be worth consideration.

Oh lord, it's a light entertainment show ffs, we're not voting in the next government! We all know it's based partly on dance ability but much more on personality and how a celeb appeals to us. I don't have a problem with that. The most popular celeb won and he just happens to be a bloody good dancer too.

I know what you mean, OP, but to a certain extent the celeb world does rely on this kind of fandom. The same people who vote multiple times might also go to a show starring their favourite several times, or buy associated merchandise, or buy a fairly mediocre product released by them and so on. Fandom is, by its very nature, behaviour at least a step (and often several steps) beyond the norm, and it keeps the show biz world going. TPTB would be daft to discourage it as it also keeps Strictly as a huge programme which makes headlines for 3 months. A reasonable mix of casual viewers, regular watchers but non-fans, fans and super fans is needed to keep shows like this alive. I don't know if Jay would have won without the super fans (although I think he might well have done), but let's face it, he and Peter Andre between them ensured the show remains big enough to have a safe future.

Jay is deservedly liked and a really watchable, enjoyable dancer. He got my 3 online votes. If he inspired someone to vote 60 times - well there you go, to that person he is massively likeable and watchable. The result reflects these feelings across the voting public.

Voting percentages should be released more like for transparency

Actually, you're right but as Katie was probably a shoo-in (or should that be out?) for elimination at the first stage of teh final I think my point about giving the remaining three a vote each applies.

Three left, 1 vote each = Why bother?

They won't restrict anything because that would stop the money coming in. At the end of the day, thats all it's about. If it was about the dancing, there would be no public participation in the vote.

I know they found something like this on DWTS where one contestant had asked family and friends to vote upto 10 times each every week. When this was found and eversince they have restricted the number of votes so that you have the same number of votes as there are couples dancing and I think thats what they should do on SCD is limit it to 15 phone votes on week 2 14 on week3 ect as it prevents people calling 100 times and spending masses of money. It would save me a fortune on Anton next year also if he was back and this system was put in place

My sister voted just once last night, by phone. I told her her vote wouldn't make a blind bit of difference, given the legions of fans already voting continuously for Jay. In situations like this, there's really no point in normal people voting.