If there’s one lesson to take away from Dancing With the Stars Season 34 so far, it’s that fan votes can make or break a couple’s journey on the show.
Hilaria Baldwin and Gleb Savchenko were sent home from the competition on Tuesday, October 7, despite receiving high scores from judges throughout the season. In comparison, Andy Richter and Emma Slater were saved to dance another week despite finding themselves at the bottom of the leaderboard. For many DWTS fans, this season’s results have sparked questions about how much the fan vote counts in comparison to the judges’ scores.
“The thing that really pisses me off about dwts is that the scores the judges give are just nonsense which means the contestants safety depends 100% on the audience & the audience is always on some bs,” one X user tweeted after Tuesday’s episode.
Another person added, “Production encouraging the live crowd to boo every single time there’s the slightest bit of criticism ensures the idea that this is a popularity contest, not a dance competition.”
One fan noted that “no one works harder than #dwts fandom voting someone out,” while another posted, “I know we need to vote for the best dancers BUT ANDY is [so] dang cute😭😭😭 There are other people I want to go home more🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️.”
Disney/Eric McCandless
Former DWTS pro Lindsay Arnold previously explained how the show’s voting system works in a 2023 TikTok video. “When it comes to eliminations, it is 50 percent judges’ scores, 50 percent viewers’ votes,” she explained at the time.
Describing the numbers as a “pie,” Arnold continued, “We’ve got our pie, which makes up 100 percent of either the votes or the scores. Each couple is gonna get a different percentage of those scores. The people who get lower scores, they’re only getting 25 percent of that score pie, whereas someone with higher scores is maybe getting a 75 percent piece of that score pie.”
According to Arnold, it works the same way with fan votes. “Sometimes, the bottom of the leaderboard maybe only has 25 percent of that score pie, but they got 80 percent of the vote pie, and that surpasses some people who maybe have higher scores. Vice versa. Maybe some of those people who are getting really high scores and have 90 percent of that score pie are only getting 10 percent of votes.”
Arnold said the 50/50 voting system works to the benefit of all couples. “It’s good because the scores could sometimes help, maybe, the couples that aren’t getting as many votes, and the votes can help the couples who, maybe, aren’t getting as good of scores. And that’s how the show works. That’s how it’s worked for a very long time.”
@lindsarnold Hope this helps 🤗 #grwmchat #grwmroutine #grwm #dwts ♬ original sound – Lindsay Arnold Cusick
While the judges’ scores are just as influential as the fan vote, current pro Val Chmerkovskiy previously shared some critiques of the judging system. “No one should get higher than a seven until, like, Week 4, regardless of our excellent dances, excellence,” he said on a December 2024 episode of the Lightweights Podcast with Joe Vulpis. “Week 1, 2, 3 should be — a seven, that’s a 10 until you get, you know, further into the season because it just takes out the importance of those numbers at some point.”
Dancing With the Stars, Season 34, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC and Disney+ (Streaming Next Day on Hulu)
For a more extended celebration of two decades of Dancing With the Stars, from exclusive interviews to retrospectives and must-see photos, pick up a copy of TV Guide Magazine’s Dancing With the Stars 20th Anniversary special issue, available for purchase online at DWTS.TVGM2025.com and on newsstands now.
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
