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Eddie Vedder, right, and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam perform Sunday, May 9, 2010, at The Q in Cleveland.

(John Soeder)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - With a recent increase of nearly 600,000 votes in the annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Fan Vote, some fans have been crying foul. However, to its credit, the Rock Hall is going out of its way to explain its refined process.

The 600,000 votes that showed up this week were votes (for every artist) that were held back to be properly validated by the Rock Hall and its technology partner Votem. The Rock Hall then chose to release those validated votes all at once.

"When we confirmed that they were not created by outside programs or bots, we released [them] into the poll," says Todd Mesek, vice president of marketing and communications for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. "To be clear, we were not hacked, no votes were purged, and no bots were adding votes to the poll."

The votes were spread out to every artist and did maintain the top five vote-getters - Journey, Electric Light Orchestra, Pearl Jam, The Cars and Yes - who could go on to comprise this year's Fan Ballot.

Much of the controversy has to do with last year's Fan Vote, which produced astronomical numbers, leading many to believe it had been hacked. The Rock Hall partnered with Votem this year in an effort to ensure the vote's integrity.

From the outside looking in, the huge jump in votes (a increase of 70 percent) can be jarring. However, a new chart released by the Rock Hall shows a full look at its accounting of votes since the start of November.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Fan Vote since the start of November.

Mesek also points out that fans may be seeing old vote totals on their desktop or mobile devices. Clearing a browser's cache or history should fix the issue. The Rock Hall has also extended the Fan Vote to Dec. 15.

"[We] know how much people care about who gets inducted and because of that passion, the integrity of the fan vote has always been really important to us," says Mesek. "The priority has been authenticating votes and keeping the process secure."