MORE "AMERICAN IDOL" INSANITY

"AMERICAN IDOL" CONTROVERSY: DID AT&T WORKERS CHEAT TO SWAY THE FINAL "IDOL" VOTE IN KRIS ALLEN'S FAVOR???

This one's for all the "American Idol" conspiracy theorists out there: A HUGE, EARTH-SHATTERING new "Idol" voting "controversy" sprang up yesterday . . . and this one actually has nothing to do with ADAM LAMBERT'S sexuality.

The "New York Times" has published a SHOCKING EXPOSÉ, claming that employees of AT&T . . . one of "Idol's" biggest corporate sponsors . . . cheated to sway the final "Idol" vote in favor of KRIS ALLEN.

Here are the details:

On the night of the last performance show, AT&T workers showed up at two large Kris Allen support parties, in his home state of Arkansas. They passed out free phones, with free text messaging capabilities . . . so that everyone could vote, non-stop, for Kris. But that's not all: The "Times" claims the AT&T employees taught the fans how to do something called "power texting" . . . which allows you to send 10 or more simultaneous texts, at the push of a single button. That would be against "Idol" rules.

After every episode, "Idol" flashes a disclaimer in super-small print saying that blocks of votes using "technical enhancements" are forbidden and will be thrown out. (--It's unclear how obvious "power texts" would be to the "Idol" vote monitors.) AT&T IS owning up to all this . . . except they don't specifically address the "power texting" accusation. Regardless, though, they don't think it impacted the final vote.

The company has released this statement: "In Arkansas, a few local AT&T employees were invited to attend two local watch parties organized by the community. "Caught up in the enthusiasm of rooting for their hometown contestant, they brought a small number of demo phones with them and provided texting tutorials to those who were interested. (--Yeah, "texting tutorials" doesn't sound shady at all.) "Going forward, we will make sure our employees understand our sponsorship celebrates the competition, not individual contestants. That said, it's quite a leap to suggest that a few individuals could have impacted the final results."

Fox and the producers of "American Idol" also released a statement, backing up the claim that the final outcome wasn't affected: Quote, "[We] are absolutely certain that the results of this competition are fair, accurate and verified. Kris Allen is, without a doubt, the American Idol." --"We have an independent third-party monitoring procedure in place to ensure the integrity of the voting process. In no way did any individuals unfairly influence the outcome of the competition."

Now, to be straight with you: There was some unfairness going on here. In addition to the "technically enhanced" texting rules, "Idol" clearly states that, "standard rates apply" . . . so it isn't cool that these people got to vote using FREE texts. And then there's the fact that AT&T . . . due to their sponsorship . . . is the only service that can send text message votes to "Idol". (--But that's only relevant if the entire COMPANY was backing Kris. And that doesn't appear to be the case.)

BUT . . . it sounds like this scandal would have to be much, MUCH bigger than it appears now in order for it to seriously affect the overall voting. Here's some analysis, courtesy of the "Hollywood Reporter" . . . quote, "Based on the available information, the math supports the network and phone company . . ." "The 'Arkansas Post-Democrat' said the phone company provided about 50 units at one event, 30 at another. Other sources put the number of phones as considerably lower. Let's say there were indeed 80 free power-text phones in play. "And suppose each was used to vote once per minute by Allen partygoers while they watched the two-hour telecast. That's 9,600 text messages. And suppose each voter sent 10 votes for Allen each time. That would give Allen 96,000 votes. "And this assumes that the 1,200 votes per phone wasn't flagged. 'Idol' votes are not blindly collected; there's a monitoring system in place to catch irregularities.

"Network sources say more than 100 million votes were cast in the contest . . . the most votes ever for an 'Idol' finale . . . [according to] RYAN SEACREST. Fox reps have previously told reporters that Allen won by a large margin. "All of which suggests a vote gap that no amount of Arkansas viewing party voting could have overcome to give Lambert the win." (--OK, you know what? Kris won "American Idol". It's over . . They're both going to release albums, they've both already received an "Idol" platform . . . so who freakin' cares??? It's up to them what they do from here.)