would it be better to make it known? or would it lead to more tactical voting by both the judges and 'the public'?

I think it would lead to less votes overall, and hence less money for children in need.

For example, if we found that Alesha was already a long way on the lead then what would be the point of voting for anyone else?

Well I wouldn't mind knowing the public RANKINGS (like they do with the judges (X down to 1) - not that bothered about the actual numbers!

If we knew the points awarded for the public vote, and not the number of votes received. Also are the points awarded for the public vote the same as for the judges? Is it a 50/50 split?

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Yes.

As for knowing the public vote - they do this on Dancing on Ice, but I'm not too sure this is a good idea. The public seem to be outraged when their bottom choice is saved by the judges, although the rules are explained at the beginning.

There is no reason why the voting cannot be published after the programme has finished. They did it on Pop Idol without the world coming to an end!

There was a discussion last year on this forum about using the Freedom Of Information act to get the numbers - I remember posting on that thread.

I think it even went as far as an enquiry, but the answer was "No, it's commercially sensitive"

Ah yes, here it is:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=497229

Only problem was when they published the percentages in the Pop Idol book - it turned out that the other person who was said to be in the bottom 2 ... actually wasn't the person with the second lowest total. No sing off in PI though, so the lowest one did actually go but even so one poor lass - Susie ( I think, it was a while ago now ) was told she was in the bottom 2 for 2 consecutive weeks - when actually she was quite high up the rankings, but neither she nor the viewers knew that at the time, the implication was that she was the second worst and hanging on by her fingernails, and she went pretty quick after that.

Do we actually see the ranking already though? They say the results are announced in no particular order... but it always seems to start with the best ones going through 1st and the worse ones at the end.

Public voting in the last few years has been rubbish in ALL series.

Big brother has suffered from stupid public votes, X-Factor has and now Strictley Come Dancing.

Not necessarily - they announced Kate and Anton were safe first a couple of weeks ago (Samba week I think).And they've left some of the higher marked pairs to the last 3 before now

I think when the series has ended the phone votes should be made available to the public.

Well when it's pretty much mathematically impossible for a particular couple to go out there's no tension about their fate so they tend to announce those ones first in order to up the drama later.

Well my opinion is after all these phone scams they should be much more open about it & yes tell us the true statistics. I may start voting again if they did so.

Personally I wouldn't want to know until the end of the series. If we know how the public are voting there is much less of an unknown about who is likely to stay and go.

I don't think it would help at all - people unfortunately would still "sympathy vote", or do the "scot's vote" thing!

I think as the weeks pass it is increasingly easy to work out the public rankings .
It is easy to see now , that Kate is well up that list and so is Kenny , whilst it is still possible for one of the couples at the top with the judges to get a low public vote and go through easily .
I don't think knowing the rankings will make a bit of difference to the public , most of the viewers who are bothering to vote are voting for Kate and Kenny ;why would they stop?

Of course we wouldn't know if someone had paid some management company to phone in 1000s of times each week !

Yes I agree entirely but would like to know how many votes the winner had last year though

I think they should publish. I have always wondered if the order they are read out is stage managed for effect. e.g. Week Gabby went - Kenny/Ola last to go through.

I would just like to know what percentage of the final votes has been cast during the week for each couple before they dance and after they dance.

Kate 99% before 1% after.

In HDYSAPLM and Joseph they had a bottom two, but told them who was lowest and who would go if it weren't for the Judges decision. It just gave it that extra 'Phew, aren't I lucky then!' vibe, and really let them know they were in danger next week/would have to work harder.

In Strictly though, I think they should NOT have Len make the final decision - not only is it unfair but there's no drama in it at all. Better for them all to vote, then go to the lowest public score if it's a tie and have the old spotlights and dum dum music like in the old days. We'd know then, obviously.

It would be so much better if there were two phone numbers for each couple - one if you want them to stay and one if you want them to go.

I reckon the result would end up by being far more representative of what people actually want.

With the current system, if I want Kate to leave I have to register a vote for every other person and I'm not likely to do that.

Actually I'd say Kate gets the vast majority of her votes on the night from people voting for reasons such as sympathy, because Anton made them laugh, because her routine was so bad it was funny, because the judges were horrible to her...

I didn't know that. That was, presumably PI2, not PI1.

sorry everyone but this SCD is a farce - we have all seen how good dancers get voted off and bad ones remain but for the BBC to give phone numbers a week in advance BEFORE WE HAVE SEEN THEM DANCE just negates the whole voting system. They don't need to dance, someone popular could be still voted to stay EVEN IF THEY DIDNT DANCE.
Is it a dancing competition or just a popular personality parade?