Eurovision's other Israel-related challenge: new rules on voting and lobbying

This week's Eurovision Song Contest, already stung by five countries' boycott over Israel's participation, also faces a test of new public-voting rules that were introduced to address concerns about Israel's ability to mobilise votes last year.

The contest, a celebration of pop music and high camp now in its 70th year, is no stranger to controversy over scores since before public voting was introduced in 1997. It is now the world's biggest and most complex television voting operation, says its organiser, the European Broadcasting Union, or EBU.

Several national broadcasters including some of Israel's loudest critics raised concerns with the EBU last year after Israel's unusually strong showing in the public vote - which makes up half the total points on offer - compared to the vote by national juries, which constitutes the other half.

Israel's entry came second, getting 83% of its points from the public. The winner, Austria, got just 41%. Media reports said an Israeli government advertising agency paid for online adverts and encouraged social media users to back the Israeli song, showing them how to vote up to the maximum 20 times.

The new EBU rules approved in November include halving the vote limit to 10, and discouraging "disproportionate promotion campaigns", particularly when carried out or supported by third parties, including governments.

ESC Director Martin Green told Reuters in an interview on Friday (May 08) the reduction to 10 votes was a response to fans' and members' opinions and wishes.

"If our members want that, remember the EBU is a democratic membership organisation - so if our members want that to happen, we're happy to let that happen", said Green. 

Green later also issued a statement on Saturday (May 09) saying he had given Israel's national broadcaster KAN a formal warning over videos posted by its entrant Noam Bettan with an instruction to "vote 10 times for Israel".

Directly calling for 10 votes for an entry is not in line with ESC rules or the spirit of the competition, it said. Still, it noted it was not a "large scale funded third-party campaign" and could not affect the final result. Israel's KAN said it follows all the rules and that Bettan immediately stopped using the videos.

"The matter in question concerns an independent initiative carried out by the artist's close personal team, without any prohibited financing, similar to activities conducted by other contestants as well," KAN said.

As of what point a promotion campaign becomes disproportionate is unclear. "All countries ask their people, particularly their diasporas - because of course you can't vote for your own country in your own country - to get behind (them). It's a sport. We are the Olympics of music, so there's nothing unusual about that," Green told Reuters. To ensure a more balanced vote a jury was also reinstated to judge the semi-finals. It is the nature of public voting however that external factors and popularity will determine the outcome, Green said. 

The EBU is encouraging the public to vote for more than one song. Most people who cast more than one vote do so up to five times and for more than one song, Green said.

Since countries can provide up to three payment methods - online, by text message and by phone call - the 10-vote limit is in practice up to 30 per person.

An outside company, Once, is tasked with guarding against fraud. It declined to comment.

The country a voter is in can be determined by their phone number and credit card, the EBU said. Whether that means someone could use phones and payment cards from different countries to vote more than 30 times is unclear. Green said there are systems in place meant to detect any organised or fraudulent voting activity.

Production: Christine Uyanik, Francois Murphy, Laura Urraca-Makuch/Reuters