Survivor: Revisiting the ballot for second chance season

Survivor did something different for its 31st season. For the first time ever, they allowed the fans to pick the cast.

Survivor: Cambodia started off with an intriguing concept, as fans were given 32 former contestants to pick from for a second chance season. This meant no winners were included and only one-time players were eligible.

For the first time ever, pre-merge contestants were allowed to return, which brought a new element of excitement because we hadn’t seen that before. Sometimes contestants are on the short end of the stick and get booted before the merge, so it was nice to give those players a second chance too.

A ballot of 32 potential contestants was revealed to the public and from there, those on the ballot could campaign and convince the fans why they deserved a second chance at Survivor. This was heavily done on social media and some of the contestants really took it quite seriously.

Only 20 players were picked for Cambodia and that meant 12 were not selected. I thought it’d be fun to dive into the ballot and discuss those who did make the cut and those who weren’t as fortunate.

The cast was announced at the Worlds Apart reunion show, as Jeff Probst talked to every person on the ballot and either told them excitedly they’d be participating or had to awkwardly break their heart and tell them they weren’t chosen. It was really cool to see how much this meant to the players when they were chosen, but it was also really hard not to feel bad for the ones who didn’t get picked.

Anyway, let’s continue on and begin with the players who weren’t chosen.