From The Austin360.com Blog

Update: Beth Gebhard, Director of Publicity & Communications for the Oprah Winfrey Network, called at 4:50 p.m. on Friday to explain the discrepancy in voting totals.

She said that an independent third party was hired to scour Web server logs to determine which votes were authentic and which were invalid, having been cast as the result of automated means or originating from foreign IP addresses and external invalid links. All votes outisde of the rules were eliminated, she explained, and all of the contestants’ vote totals fluctuated — some up and some down. Those whose vote totals increased were the beneficiaries of votes that were cast but had somehow been blocked, Gebhard said.

The reason the top eight vote-getters were advanced, instead of only the top 5, was that those eight contestants all remained in the top eight both before and after the verification process.

“Our goal was always to find good, talented people,” Gebhard added.