The Voice

Did ‘The Voice’ Eliminate MaKenzie Thomas By Mistake?

 

Season 15 of The Voice is quickly winding down, and as expected fan-favorite contestants are being eliminated. But in the shadow of Tuesday’s semifinal, some fans think gospel singer MaKenzie Thomas lost her spot in the finale on a technicality—the (mis)spelling of her name.

MaKenzie is an unusual spelling of an already complicated name, and many viewers feel like that may have damaged her chances of prevailing during the night’s Instant Save, where votes are collected and tallied via Twitter, not know as the most typo-conscious place on the Internet. This season was the 20 year-old’s second shot at stardom, joining Jennifer Hudson’s team after being cut during the season 14 blind auditions, and she has proved herself to be a powerhouse throughout the competition with her performance of Destiny’s Child’s Emotion garnering a million views on The Voice’s youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrdCoQ7aa3A

Some of the folks live tweeting the show noted that spellings of Thomas’ name with a ‘C’ were trending alongside the correct hashtag, #VoiceSaveMakenzie. Could the show really let something like that slip through the cracks and ruin a contestant’s chance? Not according to NBC’s official rules, which state that although, “misspellings will not be counted,” each artist hashtag has four alternative spellings of their name, just in case. Meaning that any misspellings within the list of alternates do count towards the votes.

Y’all also please make sure we’re spelling her name right! Makenzie with a C is treding as well ? #VoiceSaveMaKenzie

— Naomi Garcia (@NaomGar) December 12, 2018

She is definitely The Voice! #VoiceSaveMackenzie

— Lynn Nichols (@lynnmg) December 12, 2018

@NBCTheVoice #VoiceSaveMcKenzie Love all three contestants but have to choose only one?…

— Cindy Lieber (@crlieber) December 12, 2018

While it’s good to know that there is no foul play when it comes to the voting results, this means that fans of MaKenzie’s will still be missing the soulful singer during the finals. With that all cleared up, all that’s left is to see how Kennedy Holmes, Chris Kroeze, Chevel Sheperd and Kirk Jay fare in The Voice‘s upcoming two-part finale.