You Can Vote for ‘American Idol’ With a Simple Google Search

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The final 13 contestants on American Idol’s season 13 celebrate becoming finalists.
Image: Jordan Strauss/Associated Press

Fox’s singing competition American Idol is joining forces with search behemoth Google to give viewers a new way to vote for their favorite contestants, starting on Wednesday.

Looking up “American Idol” or “Idol” via Google Search on desktop or mobile during voting time periods now allows users to vote for multiple finalists as frequently as 50 times.

Image: Fox Broadcasting/Mashable Composite

Viewers already could vote by phone call, text message or American Idol app as well as on Idol‘s website using a Facebook account — a method Fox added in 2011 for season 10.

Rival shows The Voice and X Factor have also toyed with fresh social media-driven voting methods. In 2011, for example, The Voice became the first televised singing competition in the U.S. to allow iTunes sales to count as votes. Meanwhile, X Factor began allowing votes to come in from direct messages on Twitter in 2011.

Also new to Idol‘s season 13 is Harry Connick Jr., who is Idol‘s eleventh judge since the show debuted in 2002. This year, Fox also brought back former judge Jennifer Lopez, who was on the panel for seasons 10 and 11. The network replaced Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj to join the only returning judge from season 12’s panel, Keith Urban. Randy Jackson, who had been on the judges’ panel for seasons 1 through 12, returned as a behind-the-scenes mentor.

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