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 got many YouTube ads telling me to vote for her song up to 20 times (ads didn’t mention Israel, just name and song)
It’s obvious that it has been manipulated as you don’t go from #14 to #2 overnight with votes evenly spread around many countries, especially when the song is not a hit
They intentionally chose her, because being a survivor of that terrorist attack, they can push the “see? Hamas bad, they killed 1000 innocent Israelis”
Every year Israel gets millions of votes that don’t match the song listening stats
Eject Israel from the EBU, they’re not better than Russia at this point.
They’re much worse.
The trouble is, of course, that the primary sponsor of the competition is Moroccanoil: an Israeli firm.
It seems like such an easy call - give anyone who might bring unnecessary political pressure a ‘time out’. Could keep it entirely neutral like that if they wish to appear above the fray.
Would be better than what they did as allowing Israel this year can easily be seen as a very political endorsement.
near win? i haven’t watched in a while but with all the protests i thought they’d get 0 points like UK usually would.
did the voting system change or something?edit: nvm i read the article. good job on the broadcasters raising questions.
I was wondering about the result because the politically situation always influences voting behavior for the ESC. Israel is currently not very popular (and for good reason) so I would have expected that they come in last yet they obliterated everyone else in the audience vote (just like they illegally obliterated Gaza). This did not add up and manipulation was the only reasonable explaination
I would not go as far that manipulation is the only reasonable explanation. Certainly Israeli lobby groups will have mobilized their people to vote extensively as participation in international events and the image of strong support are crucial for claiming legitimacy. As the article discusses the system of allowing up to 20 votes per number is favoring the ferverous.
There is three considerations from my side that i think need to be cleared:
- There is allegations that Israel used targeted ads on social media to encourage people to vote. Imo. this should be banned and lead to disqualification if true, especially as the EBU keeps emphasizing that ESC would be unpolitical. Having a state or state aligned actor push adds for voting is an obvious contradiction. (leaving all the other obvious ones aside for the moment)
- It must be laid open, how many “original” votes where cast for each candidate in each country and how many were multiple votes. This mechanism should be tossed out anyways. Someone willing to spend more money does not make his or her vote worth more than anyone elses. There remains the issue of multiple phone numbers per person, but that only gets amplified by allowing 20 votes on each of these phone numbers.
- It mus be analyzed if there was direct manipulations and fake votes. If that turns out to be true, that should also be a disqualification and multi year ban for the participating broadcaster. This should be separate from questions of exclusion that should be mandated by the actions of the countries.
Politics aside, can someone explain to an American why Israel is in it? Kinda seems weird to have a non-European country in Eurovision.
Australia is an even a weirder choice.
Eurovision is huge in Australia. People get up in the middle of the night to watch it. So in 2016, the contest’s 60th anniversary, they allowed Australia to compete for funsies.
Everyone agreed they understand Eurovision perfectly so they were allowed to stay.I am just waiting for the day, Australia wins and everybody in Europe has to watch the ESC in the middle of the day
Israel is a member of the EBU (European Broadcasting Union), which organizes the song contest. This is also why geographically non-European countries like Azerbaijan and Georgia can participate.
I see, thank you for the explanation!
This comment is really nice summation of why Israel are still in the ESC, but Russia were booted.
Tl;dr: Israel’s national broadcaster is still (kinda) independent, so the European Broadcasting Union are keen to protect that. Russia’s national broadcaster has been entirely subsumed by Putin’s government, so no longer fulfills the requirements of EBU membership.
That is a lie on part of the ESC, it’s been documented and until recently was still up on their website that they booted Russia because it invaded Ukraine. When asked why Israel was allowed to participate in 2024, they came up with this explanation and changed their story re: Russia.
It cannot be explained by putting politics aside. Having Israel be there is in itself a political choice.
Same applies to football (soccer), the Israeli teams cannot play against their neighbors for obvious reasons unless it’s a World Cup match. Those clowns should make peace.
Some people somehow make everything about Israel, it is tiring
Everything is about Israel. They are destroying our species. Ignore what they are doing at your own peril, friend.
What do you mean by everything? This is pretty specific. About a specific thing.
If Israel were not present or a potential issue they wouldn’t be mentioned here.
Israel is currently starving 2 million people to death and openly advocating for genocide and ethnic cleansing. It is unacceptable to give them a stage and legitimize them that way. If it was Russia still allowed to participate in Eurovision we would have the same outcry.
And in so many cases it is really senseless stupid. It’s fucking Eurovision. It’s a silly, but entertaining show, but some people really take it too serious.
