FURIOUS Strictly Come Dancing fans have set up a petition to get the BBC to release their voting stats after Dev Griffin’s shock exit on Sunday.
Fans have labelled the result a “fix” as phone lines were “too busy for votes”, with many people saying they were unable to vote for radio DJ Dev and pro partner Dianne Buswell.
The petition, put on Change.org, explains: “Two contestants with some of the largest online fan bases – Dev and Emma – found themselves in the dance off.
“Their social following sizes (both the celeb and the pros combined) are much larger than the celebs who were voted through to the next week.
“The number of people saying they were voting for Dev and Dianne and Emma and Alijiaz on the night was much higher than for other celebs.”
It adds: “Strictly is a national institution and its viewers deserve not to have their intelligence insulted in this way.
“Trust has been destroyed and the only way to rebuild it is to provide some transparency.”
The petition then lists what it demands from producers: “Release vote volumes by contestant for both phone and online.
“Film a special ITT [It Takes Two] in which the judges explain their irrational scoring.
“Release a statement from the producers to reassure public that they do not seek to influence results in any way.
“Provide a clear policy statement regarding pro dancers use of social media and the extent to which it is controlled by the production team.”
Many fans took to Twitter to complain they couldn’t get through to the voting lines.
Strictly bosses tweeted at the time: “There’s a high volume of calls, so if you don’t get through first time keep trying! And remember you can vote online”.
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BBC insiders said the phone line blockages impacted all contestants equally – and the likelihood of getting through was not dependent upon the celebrity fans wanted to vote for.
Dev and Dianne scored 27 out of 40 for their Cha Cha Cha by the judges, which placed them tenth out of 13.
All four judges voted to save Emma over Dev in the shock result.
This comes a week after their Street performance landed them in second place with a massive 36 points.