The study was conducted during Feb. 23-24, by HCD Research using its mediacurves.com website, to obtain American Idol viewers’ perceptions of which female contestants should be eliminated on tomorrow’s results show. HCD Research is conducting a series of studies among a nationally representative sample of Americans, which will parallel American Idol voting to determine the weekly winners based on a democratic, “one person, one vote” methodology.

The studies are being conducted in response to the controversy over the validity of the voting process that is currently used to select the weekly winners. The study results are compared to the actual results of the show each week. To view detailed results visit www.mediacurves.com/americanidol/idoldemocracy.

Crystal Bowersox received 16.3 percent of the votes, indicating that viewers believed that she should advance to the next round of the competition based on her performance. The contestants with the lowest percentage of votes were Ashley Rodriguez, with 5.9 percent, and Haeley Vaughn, with 4.2 percent of the votes.

Among the findings:

Respondents were asked to pick the one contestant that they thought should advance to the next round of the competition: