American Idol (season 3) - Controversies

Controversies

Viewers raised many complaints when, during the semifinals Wild Card round, four of the contestants were inexplicably eliminated on the spot without having had the chance to sing and compete first, leaving only eight out of twelve contestants eligible for selection. Marque Lynch, who was one of the 4 contestants brought back for the Wild Card show but not allowed to sing, walked out after he was told that he wouldn't be performing on the show. The other 3 stayed in the audience for the duration of the show.

Both Jennifer Hudson and LaToya London, part of final twelve, were eliminated, despite high praises from the judges. After Hudson was eliminated, Sir Elton John, who was a mentor for that season criticized the vote as 'incredibly racist' in a press conference.

The elimination of both Hudson and London has been pointed out as a classic demonstration of vote-splitting in the American Idol vote, in which the presence of similar choices reduces the votes for each of the similar choices. Hudson, London and Barrino (who would eventually go on to win the competition) were female, African-American, highly praised singers—all appealing to the same demographic bloc of voters. All three of these previously popular singers ended up in the "bottom three" the night Hudson was eliminated—the three having the lowest individual vote counts.

Question were nevertheless raised about the inadequacy of the phone voting system when it was revealed that the state of Hawaii with a population of just 1.2 million managed to log more calls than every states apart New York and California. Jasmine Trias' fans from Hawaii, which is on its own time zone, enjoyed a far less crowded calling period and were able to get more of their votes through.