'American Idol' Begins Online Voting

Mar. 3, 2011— -- When "American Idol" reveals its top 12 tonight during the first live show of Season 10, "Idol" watchers will have a chance to see what effect the new online voting will have.

For the first time, "Idol" fans can vote online for their favorite contestants, opening up the show to more votes -- and more complaints of foul play.

"It has the potential to change who votes and why to some extent," Brian Mansfield, USA Today's "Idol" blogger, told ABCNews.com. "If you change the kind of people who are voting, you change contestants who do well and those who don't."

"Until we start hearing numbers, we won't have a really good sense of how much impact it's going to play in voting," he said.

One thing is certain: people will find a reason to complain about it.

"It will give people who want to complain about something, something new to complain about," Mansfield said.

In the past, fans have complained that block voting or "power dialing," which allows individuals to cast multiple votes at one time by phone call or text message, swayed the final results -- even though it is prohibited under "American Idol" rules.

"Idol" does not release final vote tallies. That only fuels voting conspiracy theories.

"Do I think there are significant voting irregularities in the show?" Mansfield said. "No. If there were, it's the sort of thing that could bring down the whole business."

To vote online, fans must have a valid Facebook account to log on to the "Idol" website, where they can cast as many as 50 single votes. Of course, you can still vote as many times as you want through a phone call or text message.

MJ Santilli, who writes MJ's Big Blog about "Idol," said the show is limiting the number of online votes in order to keep the volume down.

Already there have been complaints that voting was slow on the website.

By slowing down the process of online voting, Mansfield said, "Idol" is making it harder to "game the system."

It was only a matter of time before "Idol" added online voting. Many other reality shows that use audience voting, like "Dancing with the Stars," are already on board.