National broadcasters for Spain and Belgium have now complained to the competition’s organisers, the European Broadcasting Union, after Israel won the public vote by a large margin.
RTVE, Spain’s public broadcaster, and VRT, the Flemish broadcasting company, are demanding that organisers investigate the televoting system, which allows voters at home to vote up to 20 times for a small cost charged to each vote by text or phone call.
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The EBU confirmed that RTVE and VRT had been in contact and said it took the complaints “seriously”.
Martin Green, the director of Eurovision, said: “It is important to emphasise that the voting operation for the Eurovision Song Contest is the most advanced in the world and each country’s result is checked and verified by a huge team of people to exclude any suspicious or irregular voting patterns.”
I love it. That week is a highlight in my year, where I can watch some fun performances and shitpost about it all on Mastodon. It’s great fun.
And yes, the competition is political by design, but that’s part of the fun. Imagine my shock when hearing that Cyprus gave Greece 12 points. Again. But the way Israel fuck it about every year really sours the whole thing.