Is American Idol voting fair?

Well, I'm glad that's settled. We can all relax now, because American Idol's producers assure us that the voting last week was fair. This despite yesterday's news that AT&T (T) employees provided power-voting lessons and free phones to a party in Arkansas last week for home-state favorite Kris Allen -- while neglecting to do so for Allen's rival, Adam Lambert. If the program's producers wanted to settle the matter, they could release the total number of votes from those Kris party power-voters, and the total number of votes counted.

But Idol did not do that. Instead, Fox and the two production companies, FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment, issued a statement: "Kris Allen is, without a doubt, the American Idol." But not only did Idol's triumvirate decline to release the vote count, it also did not detail whether such power-voting lessons were provided at Idol-viewing parties in previous seasons.