Eurovision director defends integrity of voting system in open letter

Eurovision Song Contest director Martin Green has released an open letter in response to voting concerns after Israel placed second in this year’s competition.

The letter, which comes just hours after Austrian Eurovision winner JJ told Spanish news outlet El Pais that he hopes the 2026 contest will go ahead “without Israel,” affirms the rigorous processes of authentication employed by the ESC voting system and contextualises the reason certain countries acquire large proportions of the public vote.

“All audience voting, be it SMS, call or online shows evidence of the motivation of communities or diasporas around certain contestants,” Green stated in his letter on Friday. “This can be for many reasons including personal attributes, back stories, geographic affiliations and current affairs. Historically the ESC has been as open to this as other singing and music competitions and reality television.”

The comment is almost certainly a nod to the results of Israel’s public vote from across Europe in this year’s contest in Basel. Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael managed to mobilise a huge proportion of international voters, placing second overall after being voted the top choice contestant by 12 countries and earning 297 points from the public vote.

Green pointed out that ESC allows 20 votes per person–or per payment method - which is “designed to ensure that audiences of all ages can vote for more than one of their favourite songs,” and added that “there is no current evidence that it disproportionately affects the final result."

Israeli Eurovision contestant Yuval Raphael took second place in the 2025 ESC, earning 297 points in the public vote. (Photo by Sebastian Reuter/Getty Images)Getty Images

His letter follows a slew of requests by public broadcasters from participating countries for an audit of the Eurovision 2025 voting data; Spanish broadcaster RTVE led the charge in casting doubt over the validity of Israel’s strong finish, pointing to the maximum 12 points Spanish viewers awarded Israel in the contest despite the Spanish government's vehement anti-Israel stance. Belgium and Iceland followed suit shortly after in calling for an audit of the voting data.

This year’s winner, Austrian singer JJ complained to Spanish newspaper El Pais in the wake of his Eurovision win, saying that there should be “greater transparency regarding the televoting,” parroting the demands of the broadcasters, to which Green has assured that the European Broadcasting Union will conduct a review of its scoring processes.

Green said the EBU will specifically be looking at “the promotion of our acts by their delegations and associated parties.

“Such promotion is allowed under our rules and acts to celebrate the artists, increase their profile and launch future careers – it’s very much part of the music industry - but we want to ensure that such promotion is not disproportionally affecting the natural mobilisation of communities and diasporas we see in all entertainment audience voting.”

As debates continue, the EBU faces continued pressure to reevaluate Israel’s role in the competition as well as its voting mechanisms to ensure transparency in a contest long celebrated for its diversity and inclusivity.

This year’s contest included several rule changes with regards to flags allowed in the arena, with the EBU stating that only national flags of participating countries are allowed to be displayed on stage and in official areas.

In his interview with El Pais, JJ said that Europe is “experiencing a setback”, explaining that he “tried to sneak in an LGBTQ+ flag during the final, but the organisers caught me out at the last minute.”

While the pride flag, formerly permitted on stage and seen as a significant symbol of the Eurovision contest, has been barred from being shown on stage, the restriction on waving flags of non-competing countries was lifted for the 2025 competition. As a result, audience members were permitted to wave the Palestinian flag in the arena in Basel.