ESC Insight | How Effective Is The Televote’s Move To A Ten-Vote Maximum At Eurovision?
Reducing The Number Of Televotes
Following ESC Insights’ investigation into the 2025 public votewe now have a eager curiosity in how the voting system works and what the EBU would put in place forward of the Eurovision Song Contest 2026.
When the EBU held a vote at its meeting in December 2025, the important thing argument made to its members to simply accept the adjustments, introduced in attributable to stress from broadcasters with issues of skewed voting numbers, was that by lowering the variety of votes from 20 to 10, it will restrict the power to vote en masse and thus present the legitimacy they had been searching for.
“While we are confident the 2025 Contest delivered to valid and robust resultthese changes will help provide stronger safeguards and increase engagement so fans can be sure that every vote counts and every voice is heard.”
Martin Green, 21 November 2025.
During the Second Semi Final on May 14, 2026, throughout the voting window interval of just below 16 minutes, we put this method to the take a look at, specializing in the decreased variety of votes per viewer.
Investigating the 2026 Televote rules (picture: Sharleen Wright)
Casting The Maximum Number Of Votes
Our outcomes had been that we had been in a position to forged a complete of 90 votes through the interval for a similar two international locations, by one individual utilizing one system. The solely seen constraints had been the requirement to make use of 9 distinctive financial institution card numbers and 9 distinctive e-mail addresses.
This distinctive e-mail tackle requirement is a brand new addition to the 2026 voting system.
The playing cards used had been a mixture of private, digital, and pay as you go bank cards. The latter two choices are simply accessible to anybody over-the-counter or on-line with out ID, or by way of their on-line banking app. None of those had been rejected through the voting course of.
While it’s now actively inspired to distribute votes throughout a variety of entries, with the hosts making statements a number of instances to that impact, this isn’t enforced by any of the voting frameworks.
It is extensively accepted that almost all of informal viewers and voters on the evening of the Contest will vote at most 10 instances as a result of that’s what the present tells them is feasible. These are individuals who primarily tune in for that one evening – most definitely their solely touchstone with the competition for the yr – and count on that their votes are those that may truly have an effect to find out a closing outcome.
Yet there is a sting in the tail…10 is the utmost variety of votes per cost technique.
If somebody is paying consideration, it’s displayed within the small print on the screens outlining voting through the present.
Investigating the 2026 Televote rules (picture: Sharleen Wright)
The per-payment technique assertion not solely permits a person with a number of bank cards to forged greater than 10 votes, but in addition permits a number of votes throughout a variety of gadgets, no matter whether or not they’re utilizing telephones, tablets, or a desktop pc, as said in the official voting rules on Eurovision.com.
Investigating the 2026 Televote rules (picture: Sharleen Wright)
The Impact Of A Lower Maximum
The discount of most votes from 20 all the way down to 10 is most definitely going to scale back the general variety of votes acquired. The basic viewers is being inspired to ‘unfold the love’ of their 10 votes throughout their favourite performers.
This makes it extra more likely to flatten the distribution of votes, reducing the variety of votes one performer would wish to achieve the highest ten.
Investigating the 2026 Televote rules (picture: New York Times)
Earlier this week, the New York Times analyzed voting data from 2025 provided by the Spanish broadcaster RTVE, providing some perception into the affect. The Times claims it will have taken 482 voters to equal the 47,570 votes forged in Spain for KAN’s Yuval Raphael final yr. However, that may solely be the case if every of these voters used just one cost technique. It would possible have taken far fewer people to forged a number of votes if voting had been performed the identical approach as in our experiment.
The Checkered History of Eurovision Voting
The data of vote manipulation is nothing new for Eurovision. We can look again on the likes of the 2013 reports from Lithuania’s 15min.lt investigation into Russia and Azerbaijan shopping for televotes, or the large-scale focused promoting marketing campaign throughout YouTube final yr undertaken by government-funded Israeli associations encouraging most voting for his or her entry reported by the EBU’s Spotlight News team.
As rehearsals started in Vienna, the EBU issued a formal warning to KAN, stating:
“…a direct call to use the ten votes you have available on one artist or song is also not in line with our rules or the spirit of the competition. We have sent a formal warning to KAN and will continue to monitor their promotional activities closely and take action if necessary.”
Trust In The Televote
Following investigations by ourselves and others after Basel 2025, a number of broadcasters demanded the discharge of a breakdown of all televotes. These issues contributed in some half to 5 nationwide broadcasters (from Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland, Ireland and Slovenia) withdrawing from the seventieth Edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Investigating the 2026 Televote rules (picture: Sharleen Wright)
Voting on the Song Contest is promoted as ten votes per individual. As famous by the EBU itself, this restrict might be overcome with a number of cost strategies. Those with vested pursuits would discover it simple to acquire pre-paid playing cards or generate a number of one-time card numbers from their banking apps.
The success of the Eurovision Song Contest has been constructed on the belief and connection among the many neighborhood, broadcasters, and the EBU over the course of 70 years. Questions raised over 2025’s televote have eroded that belief. Until these are answered to the satisfaction of all, the legitimacy of the Contest’s outcomes will proceed to be known as into query.
The EBU was approached for remark earlier than publication.
