Did 'Idol' Misdials Doom Clay?
May 26, 2:09 PM EST

(Associated Press) -- Maybe Clay would have beaten Ruben on "American Idol" if viewers could dial the right number.

Cinergy Communications, a telecommunications company in Evansville, Ind., handled more than 240,000 misdialed calls during the three-hour voting period for "American Idol" last week.

Cinergy's residential marketing manager, Joey Randolph, said they took more than 169,000 calls for Clay and 72,000 for Ruben. Just 130,000 votes separated Clay and Ruben out of 24 million votes cast.

Randolph speculated the problem is that older phones don't have the letter Q on it, while newer phones have "P-Q-R-S" over the 7, which some people may have thought was the letter O. The "American Idol" numbers were (866) IDOLS01 or (866) IDOLS02.

So does Clay really deserve the title? A Fox spokesman says Fox can't be responsible for people who dial the wrong number.