The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) will investigate how countries solicit votes during the Eurovision Song Contest. The Song Festival organization wants to assess whether online campaigns influence the voting ratios.
The reason is the striking result of Israel, which, despite low jury scores in many countries, still received the maximum number of points from the public. Leading up to the final, Israel conducted an intensive online campaign to gather votes for the song New Day Will Rise by singer Yuval Raphael.
Song Festival director Martin Green addresses the issue in an open letter on the EBU website. “Such promotion is permitted, to celebrate and bring the artists to the attention. But we want to ensure that such promotion does not disproportionately disrupt the natural call for votes.”
Green also confirms in the letter that the EBU will investigate the maximum number of votes per phone. That is currently set at twenty per connection. ‘This rule was devised so that all the public can vote for multiple songs,’ says Green.