And the Votes Are In Trivia Quiz

Answer: American Idol

"American Idol" (and UK's "Pop Idol") was an experiment in talent competitions that would set a standard for the modern era, allowing viewers to contribute to the proceedings by voting from home and influencing the way that the audience could engage with the contents. Over the course of the show's first season, more than one hundred million votes would be cast with the finale taking in more than fifteen million of those, crowning Kelly Clarkson the show's inaugural winner. In season two, the finale had more than twenty-four million votes cast.

Over time, the reliance on needing to phone in to vote was downplayed a bit as advancements in text messaging were on the rise. It took ten years before online voting was allowed.

Answer: The Jury

In nearly every episode of "Survivor", tribes of castaways are pitted against one another (or in the individual half of the game, the single tribe fights for individual rewards) to try and claim immunity, protecting them from being voted against in Tribal Council, a session in which they place votes to eliminate their fellow contestants from the game. Due to the inherently social nature of "Survivor", some of these votes may appear as givens, but many are also blindsides and many are affected by unique advantages and game elements.

In the end, the final vote to crown a $1,000,000 winner is performed by the previously-eliminated castaways (generally a set amount of them, starting after the tribes merge).

Answer: One

The first season of the U.S. version of "Big Brother" proved to be a unique hit in that it captured enough of an audience to sustain its social experiment to keep going, but major changes needed to be made to up the stakes. First airing in 2001, it placed a handful of people into a house, always under the watchful eyes of the cameras, where they had to avoid getting banished from the building through not-quite-weekly votes.

The catch was that the votes were always done from the American public; the houseguests voted for who should be up for banishment while the viewers eliminated one person of the amount presented.

After this first season, the rules changed, allowing the houseguests to eliminate each other instead.

Answer: Blocked

Playing off the "Big Brother" format but leaning harder into a social media element, the Netflix-produced "The Circle" placed individuals (or duos) into apartments in one big building, but did not let them engage face-to-face, instead relying on their ability to communicate over an app called 'The Circle'. Contestants would rank each other on a regular basis with the person receiving the lowest ranking being blocked and eliminated from the game. Those rated highest would be in the position to be 'influencers', potentially changing the flow of the game and putting others at risk. Contestants could choose to play it straight or catfish their fellow players in an aim to be the top-rated surviving player and win the cash prize.

Answer: A Faithful

In a game of social deduction, a group of contestants in this game is brought to a remote destination-- usually a castle-- and the host selects a handful of them to be 'Traitors', whose sole goal is to make it to the end of the game undetected to collect the grand prize.

The 'Faithfuls' are tasked with rooting the Traitors out of the game, eliminating them by votes at the Round Table, in which they can interrogate their fellow players. Generally, the results of this vote end with a fellow Faithful being eliminated, but sometimes, they get it right, forcing both Faithfuls and Traitors to rework their maneuvers to make it to the end.

In the event of a tie, players revote, and in the event of another tie, the elimination is left to fate.

Answer: The audience at home

The voting systems for these shows has always seemed a bit nebulous, especially since many fan favourites over the years have fallen victim to the classic 'I didn't vote for them because I thought they were safe' effect. Essentially, all votes are tallied from two sources; the judges provide immediate scores based on the dances seen live in the theatre while the public is able to cast votes either by toll-free phone number, text message, or Facebook.

These scores are then combined to determine who goes home the following week. Using the judges' scores with a significant weight ultimately helps balance the potential for the competition to become a general popularity contest, but sometimes, it can't be helped.

Answer: U-Turn

Being introduced in Season 14, the U-Turn is a race mechanic that forces the affected team(s) to return to their previous Detour task (a choice between two task options) to complete the one they did not partake in. Eventually, the show would shake things up by creating the U-Turn Vote, often bringing teams together to cast votes in-person with the team(s) receiving the most votes being forced to complete both challenges coming up down the race course.

A Blind U-Turn Vote has also been seen in some seasons, meaning that teams cast these votes anonymously for the same effect.

It's one of a handful of cases in the show which, while normally built around showcasing teams' challenge and travel-savviness, relies at least a bit on social strategy and game sense (and luck, to a degree).

Answer: Five

Although some seasons, including those filmed during COVID-19, featured four contestants, traditionally, the show features five (no matter where, internationally) in which the home cooks travel to one another's homes to enjoy a meal of the host's choosing (with certain restrictions if it's required of certain diners).

At the end of each meal, on the ride home, the contestants score the dishes, ultimately landing on a winner with the highest score at the end of the final meal. That winner takes home a cash prize for beating out their neighbours.

Answer: Miss Congeniality

"RuPaul's Drag Race" has never really shied away from the fact that the choice between who stays and who goes is RuPaul's to make, and as such, voting is rarely employed on the show's core version (though it is in some "All Stars" seasons). Where voting does come into play, historically, is in the show's Miss Congeniality segment, which usually takes place at the reunion of the finale.

In earlier seasons, this vote was performed online, with fans sending in their selections, though this led to arguments between the cast who declared the results a 'fan favourite award' instead of a true Miss Congeniality award.

This changed from the tenth season onward, during which Miss Congeniality would be chosen by their fellow cast members.

Answer: Their own

Eurovision's voting system has always been a bit complicated as all voting nations have their citizens call in to weigh in on the best songs, but only the top ten nations voted for (from within each country) get an allotment of points, half of which come from a committee, and half of which come from the public. In this, a nation can not vote for their own nation to win, presumably because most nations would elevate their own performers.

Participants who submit votes from a non-EU/non-participant country are still counted in their own bucket, considered 'the Rest of the World'.

Votes for winning countries tend to be in the high hundreds, as the quantity of nations and the spread of points allows for great variation, even if there are multiple front-frunners.