Pop Idol is not for the poll idle

By

Although you are not the first publication to state that nearly 9 million people voted in the final of Pop Idol, I feel this needs challenging when used in the context of stimulating youth to vote in political elections.

I personally know someone who “voted” over 40 times for Will Young.

How many others, mainly teenagers I assume, were motivated to make multiple calls (votes) in the hope they could help their Pop Idol to win.

I for one would guess that with the likes of teen favourites Ant and Dec frequently announcing how close the voting was, many youngsters would have voted more than once.

A cynic might suggest that even if it was less than 1 million people voting an average of ten times, that would have been a fantastic response.

I’m sure that BT would be able to offer the answer to this puzzle, or at least how many actual households “voted”.

Voting online is even more open to rigging with many people having a range of e-mail addresses and pseudonyms.

Lets not deceive an already poorly informed Government that all they need to do is tap into youth lifestyles, and make voting easy, to get voting levels back to those a democracy deserves.

As for ads for political parties, will these have 0800 or premium rate numbers for me to “phone-in” my vote?

Ivan Clark

Media director

Optimad Media Systems

London, W1

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