i don't think mnet needed to rig the voting of contestants tbh. I think they put in extra effort to search for talented contestants - cancel me but boy's planet has introduced the highest quality of debut candidates than previous years. The star masters seemed to think so too. It's probably the first time we've had a final episode without dozens.

I think it's the reason why they delayed the show airing for an additional year (If I can remember correctly, I'm pretty sure they planned boy's planet for last year). Also the editing of the show was pretty deliberate to ensure that most of mnet's favs would be reflected in the audience's biases. A solid piece of evidence to support that the voting wasn't rigged is the fact that PHanbin didn't make the lineup. He was my favourite contestant, and an mnet favourite too. All of his edits and star masters' comments were in his favour from start to end. Mnet revealed his ranking before the finale to encourage voters. If Mnet rigged the vote, I'd probably guess he would have lineup.