Fans Call For Voting, Judging Overhaul Following DWTS Semi-Finals

ABC Some fans are calling for a change to the voting and save system on "Dancing With the Stars."

Some viewers of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” are calling for changes to be made after season 30 airs, specifically in regards to how the couple going home is determined.

Currently, the scores from the judges are combined with votes from viewers in order to determine which couple is placed in the bottom two. Then, judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli, and Derek Hough ultimately decide which of the two couples gets sent home and which moves on to the next round of the competition.

The system means that the overall bottom performer on “Dancing With the Stars” is not always sent home. Instead, it becomes a bit of a popularity contest because votes do have such a large influence on which contestants get to stay around.

Fans Think There Could Be A Better System

One viewer took to Reddit to explain their problem with the current system on “Dancing With the Stars.”

“Maybe they really need to make a change to this system based on scoring and voting, but I have an interesting proposal,” one post reads. “Every week, the couple with the lowest score is automatically in the bottom two. No matter what the lowest score goes in the bottom two then the other couple can be the lowest score/votes combined. Then the judges can decide to save one of them.”

The post goes on to suggest, “You could conversely also give an immediate pass that week to the BEST score. Keep those two positions (Best and Worst) as a lock based on dancing and let the rest include scores.”

Many people agreed with the idea, though they were worried about what that would mean for the lower-scoring couple.

“I totally agree with such a system, but then what would the judges base their save on? If the lowest scorer is always in the bottom 2, the judges will 99% of time vote them off, so the lowest score is kind of like a guaranteed sentence,” one comment reads.

Some Fans Say The Judging Needs to Be Changed

Others took to Reddit to talk about the fact that Carrie Ann Inaba is the only judge who calls out lifts and has to dock a point for them, and they think that it’s “inconsistent.”

“Sometimes she calls people out for it and not others,” one person writes. “Sometimes she calls some people out for it and not others. What bothers me the most is that she says she thinks she saw a lift, but doesn’t actually identify and prove when it happened, so the contestant is losing points based on something she THINKS maybe she saw at some vague, unidentifiable moment during the dance.”

Another wrote, “If they docked a point for every single technical error on this show, every couple would walk away with all 1s and 2s. CAI is highly inconsistent when she chooses to dock these error points and when she doesn’t.”

During the semi-finals, Melora Hardin and professional partner Artem Chigvintsev danced the rumba during the episode, and the judges mostly liked her dance. They got very inconsistent scores. Inaba said that at one point Hardin’s foot came off the ground, and she said she would have to dock a point for a lift.

“Here come Carrie Ann with her lift b-s,” one person tweeted.

Another wrote, “Lawd always gotta dock a point for a lift #dwts.

“Dancing With the Stars” airs on Mondays at 8 p.m. Eastern time (live) and Pacific time (recorded) on ABC.

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