ABC/Eric McCandless
Dancing With the Stars season 28 is entering week 3 and tonight airs the “Movie Night” episode of the show. Tonight’s episode will include the live results, as usual, along with the movie-themed performances from each of the couples. At the end of tonight’s show, another team is scheduled to be eliminated, but a reported drop out could affect this. According to Entertainment Tonight, contestant Ray Lewis and his partner Cheryl Burke are rumored to be quitting. If this happens, the show could choose to skip an elimination or could conduct eliminations like usual.
Either way, if you would like to keep your favorite contestants moving on in the competition, it is essential to remember to vote. This season’s voting works a bit different than the past, with more incorporation of the judges’ scores.
DWTS Voting Window & New Rules
According to ABC, the way Dancing With the Stars works this season is this, “Each Monday night, the live vote (via abc.com, the ABC app and SMS/text) will be combined with the judges’ scores and tabulated in real-time, with the bottom two revealed during the broadcast. And for the first time in DWTS history, voting has been changed this season where the judges will decide which celebrity up for elimination stays in the competition and which celebrity’s journey comes to an end … Moving forward with each subsequent Monday night, the live vote combined with the judges’ scores will be revealed during the broadcast.”
ABC has reported that the voting window is only available for “Eastern and Central time zones and will not be available during later broadcasts in the Mountain, Pacific, Alaska or Hawaii time zones.” Voting will open at the start of the show, at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT and will close during the last commercial break.
One must be located in the U.S. or Puerto Rico in order to cast their votes. And, you can submit up to 10 votes per couple, per voting method, which means a total of 20 possible votes per voter.
To vote online, one must have an ABC account, which you can sign up for using an email address. If you already have an ABC account, you may have to reconfirm your registration if you haven’t used your account in a while. In this case, when you log in, you will be sent a confirmation email with a verification code.
DWTS Voting Phone Numbers
So, with less than two hours for live voting, it’s important to get your votes in on time. Fans can vote either online or via text messages. The phone numbers and instructions for text messaging are:
Text ALLY to 21523 to vote for Ally Brooke
Text SAILOR to 21523 to vote for Sailor Brinkley-Cook
Text HANNAH to 21523 to vote for Hannah Brown
Text JAMES to 21523 to vote for James Van Der Beek
Text KARAMO to 21523 to vote for Karamo
Text KATE to 21523 to vote for Kate Flannery
Text KEL to 21523 to vote for Kel Mitchell
Text LAMAR to 21523 to vote for Lamar Odom
Text LAUREN to 21523 to vote for Lauren Alaina
Text RAY to 21523 to vote for Ray Lewis
Text SEAN to 21523 to vote for Sean Spicer
The “Dancing With the Stars” Cast Likes the New System
DWTS pro Alan Bersten weighed in about the new way of voting and told Hollywood Life, “I think it’s great. I think it gives that immediacy of the voting and you don’t have to wait a week to see what happens. People get to see what they voted for right away and the judges are a lot more strict this year, and hopefully, the audience chooses their favorite more and more every week. I think it’s more fair all across the board just because the audience gets to choose their favorite and whoever they think is the best dancer and the judges are really judging.” Pro Sasha Farber also said he likes the new system, stating, “I personally think it’s a good system. I think it gives, like I said, someone who maybe doesn’t have the great votes, but is a great dancer. It gives them a chance, you know, to save them. Sometimes this happened in the past where, you know, um, a good dancer has left. So this gives the judges an opportunity to save great dancing and someone who’s great for the show.”
During the first live results night for season 28, the bottom two contestants were shown and then the judges got to cast their votes to choose which contestant would be eliminated from the bottom two. They chose Supremes singer Mary Wilson to be eliminated.
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