Photo By: ABC - Eric McCandless
Dancing With the Stars: Athletes is a 4-week special edition of the DWTS series, which means that the live episodes will work a bit differently than past seasons. Season 26 will incorporate real-time live voting, in order to decide which contestants will be eliminated. According to ABC, there will be live voting and eliminations during the east coast and central time zone airings. Unfortunately, west coasters may not be able to participate. Visit dwtslivevote.com during the show to cast your votes. And, for the overnight vote, you can find your options here when the voting windows are open.
Now, before we get into the voting rules and how to cast votes online, here is the breakdown of the phone numbers for each contestant this season. These are the voting numbers.
Adam Rippon & Jenna – 1 800 868 3401
Arike Ogunbowale & Gleb – 1 800 868 3402
Chris Mazdzer & Witney – 1 800 868 3403
Jamie Anderson & Artem – 1 800 868 3404
Jennie Finch Daigle & Keo – 1 800 868 3405
Johnny Damon & Emma – 1 800 868 3406
Josh Norman & Sharna – 1 800 868 3407
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Lindsay – 1 800 868 3408
Mirai Nagasu & Alan – 1 800 868 3409
Tonya Harding & Sasha – 1 800 868 3410
Votes will be combined with the judges’ scores during each episode of the show this season and the couples with the lowest combination of scores and votes will be sent home. Voting this way will be a live online-only vote method during the live broadcast of the show. The remaining couples will then move on to the next episode. Live voting will end shortly after the last couple performs on the show.
ABC also reports that, “At the end of the first episode, overnight voting will open for phone, ABC.com and Facebook, which will factor into the week two eliminations. Toll free phone voting will be open nationwide from the end of the live show until 5 a.m. ET on Tuesday. Online voting at ABC.com and on Facebook will open at the end of the live show and closes at 10 p.m. ET on Tuesday May 1, 2018 … Online voting on ABC.com and Facebook, along with toll free phone voting, will open during the May 7 and 14 shows at the top of those respective shows on the East Coast at 8 p.m. ET. Toll free voting will close at 5 a.m. ET and online voting will close at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday May 8 and Tuesday May 15, 2018 respectively.”
There are several guidelines to adhere to when voting for the show. Voters must be 18 years old or older and must be located in the U.S. or Puerto Rico in order to vote on ABC.com. For those voting on Facebook, fans must have a Facebook account and need to be located in the U.S. or Canada. Data rates may apply.
One thing to be careful of when voting, according to ABC, is that, “During each voting window, when voting online at ABC.com or Facebook, you can reallocate your votes until the voting window closes. Just be sure to hit “save votes” each time you make a change to your votes! But remember – only your most recently saved votes will count.” The amount of votes that you can submit per each voting method will change throughout the season, but ABC has reported that votes will not go below 5 votes per voting method. ABC has explained that, “For example, in week one, there are 10 couples and you have 10 votes to allocate among all the competing couples. If you want to vote for a given couple, you can submit up to 10 votes for them on ABC.com, up to 10 votes for them on Facebook and up to 10 votes for them via toll-free phone voting, for a total of up to 30 votes for that couple across all voting methods that week.” So, the number of votes allowed depends on how many contestants are in the competition.
To vote via ABC.com, one must create a OneID account and to vote on Facebook, one must have or needs to create a Facebook account. Also, to vote on Facebook, you must have your pop-up blockers turned off and you need to authorize the Dancing with the Stars voting app.
