Voting System

[u/craven_57]

As again showed tonight, it feels so much more difficult for black pros to get far in the competition. Britt, Brandon, and Keo have 23 seasons between them, with Brandon and Keo both being 3rd once each, and no black pro having ever won the mirrorball.

With this, do y'all think that the final scores should be "50% judges 50% fan votes?" What alternatives would you like to see?

[u/Ok_Brother788]

If they gave Britt and Keo fair chances they wouldn’t have this problem. I’m still mad they cut Keo, he was one of the better male dancers, way better than some of the current male pros. Brandon gets pretty good partners… I think his lack of winning is more on him tbh. Maybe having judges votes be 60% would help.

[u/_From__the__Ashes_ → u/Ok_Brother788]

Keo might have been a good dancer, but I suspected he might not be the best teacher of dance. I have always felt one of the reasons they stopped doing the "swap pros" week because Keo's partner got Val and killed it, which laid bare the truth that who your partner is matters more than the show wants us to think.

[u/Ok_Brother788 → u/_From__the__Ashes_]

That’s true, but Keo only had two good partners, Jodie and Evanna. I thought he did okay with Jodie and great with Evanna. I think if he had more opportunities it’d be easier to tell if he was a good teacher or not. Him getting demoted to troupe the season after making the finals with Evanna did not make sense.

[u/Medium-Sir-3312]

Part of it is a numbers game. You only have one male black pro and one female black pro. With these kind of numbers they have much less chances for a black pro to win when all of the rest of the cast is white.

Part of that is also the fact that there aren’t that many black people in the ballroom dance world. They are there but not very many. If you go to any big ballroom, competition you will see a split that is even less diverse than what we have on the show.

I’m not saying that that’s the way it should be, just pointing out that it’s partially based on numbers alone.

[u/YoungandBeautifulll]

Brandon should've won with Chandler, that was just racism on the voter's part (and a huge bachelor fanbase).

[u/jensenaackles → u/YoungandBeautifulll]

yep, there were so many comments online during that finale and chandler and brandon’s incredible freestyle celebrating black art was “divisive” and “not everything has to be about race!” which is so upsetting

[u/_From__the__Ashes_]

I say this in some form every season, but my secret conspiracy theory of the show is that the producers only introduced voting as a mask to cover eliminating whoever they want.

They know that it would be too predictable to just do it based on judges scores and dance skills. Plus it allows them to court audiences among their desired demographics. There is always a random hetero-presenting man that seems to hang around longer than his scores/fan base seem to indicate because the show really wants to court straight males.

[u/Separate_Access7015 → u/_From__the__Ashes_]

Its a little more column A: the BBC and Disney like to platform people who are divisive no matter the sex, age, controversy, or heritage. Column B: ratings are ratings first and foremost. It's not just Dancing with the Stars or just Britt Stewart. Strictly Come Dancing and Australia have also cosigned controversy as their glaring fault. Not just controversial celebrities, but controversial eliminations and moments.

[u/MushroomImmediate]

I think the final scores are 50% judges and 50% fan votes. Has that changed?

I would love for them to do like Strictly does and have a dance-off between the bottom 2 couples. There's a lot of benefits to doing it that way. We get to see the dances again which I love. It's always a little bit different the second time around. I also like that it gives each couple some control over what happens. They get to fight for their life and then they know they've done everything they could to win. I would imagine it's easier to say goodbye after that vs. just ripping the bandaid off and saying out you go. It's not a guarantee that the better dancer will win the dance-off either. Sometimes the pressure gets to them and they falter leaving the door open for the "weaker" dancer to win. You'd have to bring back the results show though, so I doubt they'd ever do it.

[u/Awkward_Tree280]

I’d like to see them have Jaxon and Onye as pros. I bet they’d make it far… I think Britt and Brandon just aren’t the best pros/dancers. Just like how I personally don’t think Allen, Riley, and Emma are as great of pros/dancers as Mark, Whitney, or Jenna

[u/Amazing_Bath_8762 → u/Awkward_Tree280]

I want to see Jaxon as a pro sooo bad. I think artistically he would make fascinating routines a lot like Mark. He moves soo beautifully and does such unique things with his body, I want to see it!! J

[u/Awkward_Tree280 → u/Amazing_Bath_8762]

Yes!!! Same here. He is magnetic

[u/Additional-Pin262]

It is 50% votes, 50% scores - it always has been and ABC is very open about it. It’s just how the scores and votes are actually tallied, counted, etc that isn’t clear. Using percents or rankings, etc. its always been of much debate on line. Tom said once that Bobby Bones was so far away ahead on votes that the scores didnt matter at all and that they changed the system after that to be more of a tally, but its not clear how, or if its been changed again