Eurovision blames telecom providers for lost Dutch votes
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) stated that an issue at one of the Dutch mobile telecom providers hampered scores of votes from the Dutch public from being counted during the Eurovision final on Saturday.
“Our understanding is that there was a problem in the Netherlands at one of the Dutch telecom companies, so that votes were not processed by the network on time and could be passed along on time. We regret the disappointment this has caused, but it was beyond the control of the EBU,” the umbrella organization in charge of Eurovision said.
Some viewers who cast their vote within the designated time frame received a text message saying, “Thank you for your vote. Unfortunately, the voting has already ended.” Following the final Eurovision event, dozens of people took to Twitter to express their dissatisfaction with their votes going uncounted.
EBU stated that no similar issue was recorded in any other country that participated in the voting. In addition, all the votes that were successfully recorded and passed on to EBU were properly processed.
Problems were reported by KPN, T-Mobile and Vodafone users in the Netherlands. T-Mobile said there was no known network malfunction during the period in which votes were received.
"We are pleased that we have a valid result. We are delighted that so many votes have been cast throughout Europe by the public who were eager to contribute to the event," the organization concluded.
Måneskin became the 65th Eurovision winner on Saturday thanks in large part to the public vote. The Italian entrant to the contest sang "Zitti e buoni" during the event in Ahoy Rotterdam.
