‘DWTS’ producer reveals how scores and votes are calculated

Dancing With the Stars is pulling back the curtain on how votes are tabulated.

The reality competition show, which recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary, famously calls upon both its judges and its viewers to determine which celebrity and professional dancer duo are worthy of the coveted Mirrorball Trophy. But for those wondering whose opinion holds the most weight when it comes to eliminations, showrunner and executive producer Conrad Green has unveiled the answer.

“It’s 50/50, effectively,” Green recently told The Hollywood Reporter. He went on to explain that the show uses a ranking system and then adds up scores, combining both the judges leaderboard and the public vote to determine which couple will be eliminated from each episode.

“Say there’s five couples and you’re in first place on that [judges] leaderboard, you get five judges ranking points. If you’re in second place, you get four, if you’re in third place, you get three, [fourth place,] two, [and fifth place,] one,” he explained. “We do the same with the amount of public votes. You add those two [separate] ranking points together, and the couple with the lowest combined total of those ranking points goes home.”

As for any ties in the votes, Green shared that they then revisit the stats from the audience votes. “The couple with the fewest public votes goes home,” he revealed.

There is a limit to the insight Green is willing to offer the show’s curious fans. When asked if DWTS would consider releasing the exact number of viewer votes, Green said, “I’d prefer not to.”

He explained that doing so on a weekly basis runs the risk of altering the way people naturally vote or disincentivizing fans completely. “In all kinds of ways, like any election or vote, you don’t want to be prejudicing the election or vote,” Green added.

The DWTS audience votes have certainly been a source of angst lately. Last week saw legions of viewers voice outrage following Whitney Leavitt‘s elimination from the show, despite earning consistently high scores from the judges.

Comedian Andy Richter, who was eliminated from the show one week prior, later speculated that Leavitt’s exit had nothing to do with her dancing skills.

“There’s a whole soap opera going on adjacent to this show online,” he told Entertainment Weekly after her exit. “It’s a good way to sort of take the temperature of what the audience is feeling in terms of voting. I’ve seen forever, there’s like people just like, ‘Whitney’s gotta go,’ and I’m just like, ‘What? Why?'”

Hilaria Baldwin, who was the fourth star eliminated from the show, similarly claimed that she got the boot due to fans banding together to vote her off. “There’s a lot of mean girls,” Baldwin said of the fan base in October. “I guess what people were doing is they were having campaigns where they wouldn’t just vote for their favorite — because you can vote 10 times for a couple — they were voting for all the other couples except us, so they were boosting everybody else and trying to drown out my fan base.”

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The season 34 judging panel includes mainstays Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli, alongside former competitor and six-time DWTS champion Derek Hough. As usual, contestants range from high-profile stars and athletes to social media superstars. The approaching finale will see five finalists compete for the Mirrorball Trophy: wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin, influencer Alix Earle, actress Elaine Hendrix, Olympian Jordan Chiles, and content creator Dylan Efron.

The Dancing With the Stars season 34 finale airs Tuesday, Nov. 25 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and Disney+, and streams the next day on Hulu.