As previously reported, reports have surfaced that one of American Idol’s biggest sponsors, AT&T, might have influenced the surprising conclusion of season 8.

According to the New York Times, AT&T reps were present at Kris Allen parties during the final voting night of American Idol 8. Allegedly, employees of the company not only provided free text-messaging to party-goers but also showed them how to power text. This method of texting allows voters to send out multiple votes simultaneously, using only a single button. Technically, power texting is against the Idol voting rules.

The mega phone company has now responded to the media controversy with a statement. It reads as follows: “In Arkansas a few local AT&T employees were invited to attend two local watch parties organized by the community,” just to keep you up to speed on this, Kris Allen is from Arkansas, “They brought a small number of demo phones with them and provided texting tutorials to those who were interested. That said, it’s quite a leap to suggest that a few individuals could have impacted the final results.”

Is it? Well, I did the math. Of course, since no specific figures have been mentioned even my math is flawed. But here’s what I came up with in a highly hypothetical situation which, let me make it plain, doesn’t necessarily have any true basis in reality. It’s just a what-if.

Let’s just suppose that 2 AT&T workers brought 5 cell phones each to a party. They passed out these 10 cell phones and subsequently taught 10 people how to power text, showing them a way to send out (we’ll say) 10 votes at a time. American Idol voting lasts for 2 hours. In our hypothetical situation, we’ll say it’s possible to send 2 texts a minute (some people have slow fingers). So if 10 people with 10 demo phones can send out 20 votes - each - every single minute for 2 hours, you’ll end up with exactly 36,000 votes.

A mere drop in the bucket, it would seem, when Idol logs millions and millions of votes per week.

According to FOX, the powers-that-be behind the show are “absolutely certain that the results of this competition are fair, accurate and verified. Kris Allen is, without a doubt, the American Idol.” The networked added, “we have an independent third-party monitoring procedure in place to ensure the integrity of the voting process. In no way did any individuals unfairly influence the outcome of the completion.”

AT&T has also promised that nothing like this will ever happen in the future. “Going forward, we will make sure our employees understand our sponsorship celebrates the competition, not individual contestants.” Not even in Arkansas.