Over 56 million music fans tuned in to last year’s Eurovision Song Contest final, making it the world’s most watched cultural event. Viewers cast 14 million votes to help choose the winner, organizers said.
But almost immediately after the competition, fans began questioning whether an Israeli government advertising campaign had tipped the popular vote in favor of Israel’s contestant, despite Eurovision’s longstanding tradition of government neutrality.
Organizers assured the public that there were no voting irregularities. And they privately told broadcasters that Israel had not influenced the outcome. But they did not commission an outside review, The New York Times found. And they did not release voting data. Doing so, they said, would undermine the contest’s security.
Data obtained by The Times shows that, in some countries, just a few hundred people would have been enough to secure a popular vote victory. That makes the contest far more susceptible to government influence campaigns than organizers have acknowledged.
Here’s a look at how that’s possible, using data from Spain, one of several countries where Israel won the popular vote despite polls showing that the public was strongly critical of the Israeli government.
We obtained the final voting percentage in the Spanish popular vote. Using the overall vote total announced by the Spanish broadcaster RTVE, that gave us the final tally (rounded) for each contestant.
The Israeli singer Yuval Raphael won overwhelmingly. Ukraine finished a distant second. (People cannot cast votes for their own country’s contestant.)
At first glance, this looks like a landslide. And it would have been — if each person had one vote.
But Eurovision allowed people to vote up to 20 times. And the Israeli government ran a campaign to try to influence voting.
Israel’s government placed online advertisements. Diplomats and advocacy groups drummed up support. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a graphic to social media encouraging people to vote 20 times for Ms. Raphael. Pro-Israel groups across Europe posted the same or similar graphics.
Just a few thousand people, casting 20 votes each, could have gotten her the 47,000-plus votes.
But Ms. Raphael did not even need all those voters. She only needed to beat the Ukrainian group that finished second, with about 9,620 votes.
It would have taken just a few hundred people, voting en masse, to secure Ms. Raphael’s victory.
How does Eurovision voting work?
The contest has a two-part voting process. First, juries of music industry professionals rank the singers. The winner gets 12 points, second place gets 10, and others receive fewer.
Then, people in each country vote for their favorite acts, with points awarded on the same scale. Viewers pay for each vote.
That’s why Eurovision doesn’t simply enact a one-person-one-vote policy, said Stephan Teiwes, a former longtime Eurovision voting monitor.
“It’s about money,” he said.
Eurovision says that is untrue and it simply wants to offer people opportunities to vote for more than one act.
Why has recent voting been controversial?
Last year, Eurovision’s juries said Austria’s song was the best, giving it 258 points. Ms. Raphael and her ballad, “New Day Will Rise,” received just 60 jury points.
But Ms. Raphael soared to the top of the public vote, with 297 points. When the tallies were combined, Ms. Raphael finished second.
Speculation spread online that Israeli bots had skewed the vote. Achiya Schatz, the director of the Israeli disinformation watchdog FakeReporter, said his group had studied the matter and found no evidence of bot activity.
But bots were unnecessary.
“There clearly was a coordinated and funded digital campaign by Israel to mobilize support,” Mr. Schatz said.
Was urging voting against the contest’s rules?
No, and organizations that campaigned for Israel last year see nothing wrong with doing so.
But it is against tradition, and Eurovision is adamant that its contest remain free from political influence. Martin Green, the contest’s director, said Israel’s campaign last year was excessive. And some national broadcasters have accused Israel of hijacking the contest for its political messaging.
Conrad Myrland, the director of With Israel for Peace, a pro-Israel organization based in Norway, said that he used social media, emails and texts last year to urge his group’s 15,000 members to vote for Israel.
When they did, he said, Eurovision sent an automated reply encouraging them to vote up to 20 times. “So the encouragement to vote several times for the same song came from Eurovision itself,” he said.
Mr. Myrland, who said he had no contact with government officials, said that pro-Palestinian groups were free to encourage supporters to vote for specific acts, too.
Eurovision says everything is fine
Mr. Green said Israel’s success last year was the result of a “motivated diaspora” and a great song.
Eurovision “can’t be won on the public vote alone, obviously,” he said. Jurors, he said, provide a backstop.
After the controversy over the Israeli campaign last year, Eurovision banned what it called “disproportionate” promotion campaigns, particularly when undertaken by “third parties, including governments.”
And Eurovision lowered the voting cap to 10 per person.
Under that standard, Israel would have needed 963 voters last year to win Spain’s popular vote.
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London.
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