Dancing with the Stars is the American celebrity ballroom competition in which judges’ scores are combined each week with votes from the public to decide which couple leaves. Search interest around it concentrates heavily on how and when the voting works.
The format
Each series pairs a group of celebrities — actors, athletes, musicians, reality-television figures and others — with professional ballroom and Latin dancers. The pairs rehearse a routine during the week and perform it live on a studio floor in front of a judging panel and an audience. Judges give a numerical score and brief critique on each routine, and those scores are added together for the couple’s total.
The judges’ verdict is only half of the result. Viewers vote for the couples they want to keep, and those votes are combined with the scores to produce a ranking. The couple at the bottom of that combined ranking is eliminated, and the process repeats week by week until a final, where the remaining couples compete for the series trophy, a mirrorball. Individual weeks are often themed, with all routines built around a genre, a decade or a specific style, and the dances themselves are drawn from a fixed repertoire: waltz, tango, quickstep, jive, cha-cha, samba, paso doble, contemporary and freestyle among them.
Google’s US search data, the source for this article, shows the show’s full name and its abbreviation, DWTS, clustered with several voting-related queries — “dancing with the stars voting”, “dwts vote”, “dwts voting” — alongside a personal name, which is not reproduced here.
Origins
The programme is the American adaptation of a British format, Strictly Come Dancing, which began on the BBC and was licensed internationally. The American version launched on ABC in the mid-2000s and became one of the network’s long-running entertainment properties, running for dozens of series. Versions of the same format have been produced in a large number of countries, usually under the export title Dancing with the Stars.
The core idea — professional dancers coaching non-dancers, with a judging panel and a public vote — was not new in isolation, but the format packaged it in a way that travelled. It combines a competition with a visible learning curve: viewers watch people who mostly cannot dance at the start of a series improve over the course of it, which gives the audience a reason to invest in individual couples beyond technical merit.
In 2022 the American edition moved to the streaming service Disney+, and it later returned to broadcast on ABC while continuing to stream. The broadcast arrangements have shifted more than once, and the precise distribution for any given series is best checked against the network’s own listings rather than assumed.
Scoring and voting today
Two numbers decide each week. The judges’ total is public and announced during the broadcast. The audience total is not: viewers cast votes, but the raw vote counts are not disclosed, so the only visible output is the elimination itself.
Voting in the American series is run live during the broadcast rather than across the following days. That is the single most consequential detail for viewers, and it explains why voting-related searches spike in a narrow window each week. Votes are generally accepted only while the show is on air and the voting window is open on screen, which means viewers watching on delay or on demand may find they have missed it entirely.
The show has historically offered more than one way to vote — an online method through an official voting site or app requiring an account, and a text-message method — with a cap on how many votes each viewer may cast per couple. The specific methods, the caps and the eligibility rules have changed between series, and they are set out by the broadcaster at the time. Anyone wanting to vote should take the on-air instructions and the official voting page as authoritative rather than relying on descriptions from previous years.
Because time zones affect when a live broadcast airs, the voting window does not open simultaneously everywhere. Whether a particular series runs a single national window or accounts for regional broadcast times is a detail that has varied, and it is not something to assume.
Common misconceptions
The most frequent misunderstanding is that the highest-scoring couple is safe and the lowest-scoring couple goes home. Neither follows. Because judges’ scores and public votes are combined, a technically strong couple with a small voting base can finish below a weaker dancer with a large one. This is a structural feature of the format, not a malfunction, and it is the source of most of the controversy that periodically attaches to the show.
A second misconception is that voting stays open after the episode. In the American version it generally does not. A third is that the vote totals are published; they are not, which means claims about how many votes any couple received are not verifiable from official sources.
It is also worth separating the format from the individual series. Rules on voting methods, vote limits, judge composition, the use of a judges’ save, and the structure of the final have all been adjusted over time. A rule that applied several years ago may no longer apply, and statements about “how the show works” often describe a version that has since changed.
Where to look next
The network’s official site for the programme and the dedicated official voting page are the only reliable places for the current voting rules, the times the window opens and the number of votes permitted. These are updated per series and supersede anything published earlier.
For the format’s history and its international spread, the BBC’s own material on Strictly Come Dancing explains the original template and how the licensed versions relate to it. Entertainment trade publications — the kind that cover broadcast ratings and network scheduling — are the usual place for reporting on distribution changes, such as moves between broadcast and streaming, and for series-by-series casting announcements.
Readers looking for the dance content itself, rather than the competition, will find that ballroom and Latin governing bodies and dance schools publish descriptions of the individual styles used on the show, which are standardised competitive dances with defined technical requirements that predate the programme by many decades.
Frequently asked questions
How do you vote on Dancing with the Stars?
Voting in the American series is done during the live broadcast, historically through an official online voting page or app requiring a registered account, and by text message. Each viewer can cast a limited number of votes per couple. The exact methods, limits and eligibility rules change between series, so the instructions given on air and on the show’s official voting page are the ones to follow.
When does DWTS voting open and close?
The voting window opens during the live broadcast and closes before the results are announced in the same episode. It is not open for days afterwards. This is why viewers watching a recording or a streaming replay often find they cannot vote. The precise timing for any given week is announced on screen and published on the official voting page.
Does the couple with the lowest judges’ score get eliminated?
Not necessarily. Judges’ scores and public votes are combined to produce the weekly ranking, and the couple placed last in that combined ranking leaves. A couple can score poorly with the judges and survive on public votes, or score well and still be eliminated. Because vote totals are not published, it is not possible to verify externally how the two halves balanced in any given week.
Is Dancing with the Stars the same as Strictly Come Dancing?
They share a format. Strictly Come Dancing is the original British programme, and Dancing with the Stars is the title used for licensed adaptations in other countries, including the American version. The structure — celebrities paired with professionals, a judging panel, a public vote and a mirrorball trophy — is common to both, but the casting, rules, scheduling and voting mechanics are set separately by each country’s broadcaster.
Where can you watch Dancing with the Stars?
The American series has aired on the ABC network and has also been carried on the streaming service Disney+, with the arrangement changing more than once, including a period when it streamed exclusively. Because the distribution has shifted between series, the current broadcaster, streaming availability and air time should be checked against official network listings rather than assumed from previous years.
Sources and further reading
- Google Trends, United States — the search-interest signal behind this article, showing the programme’s name, its abbreviation and a cluster of voting-related queries.
- The broadcaster’s official programme and voting pages — the authoritative reference for current voting methods, windows and vote limits, updated for each series.
- The BBC’s material on Strictly Come Dancing — background on the original format and its international licensing.
- Entertainment trade press covering broadcast and streaming — reporting on scheduling, distribution changes and series announcements.
Surfaced from the google:US signal “a televised dance competition”. AI-assisted draft, editorially reviewed.
