IN BRIEF
- The controversy comes a year after Israel's contestant finished second last year despite receiving low jury votes.
- Eurovision organisers have halved the maximum number of public votes from 20 to 10.
It's loud, chaotic and never short of drama — and this year, Israel’s televote campaign has once again put Eurovision's voting system in the spotlight.
Ahead of Saturday's grand final in Austria, Israeli public broadcaster KAN was formally warned by the organiser last week over videos instructing the public to vote "10 times for Israel". KAN responded by saying it had played by the rules, and also removed the videos.
The controversy comes a year after Israel's 2025 contestant finished second after winning the global public televote by an overwhelming margin, sparking debates over whether coordinated online campaigns can influence the result.
The competition has already faced political tension over Israel's participation following the war in Gaza.
Here is all you need to know about the drama:
How does Eurovision's public voting work?
Eurovision's final winner is decided by professional juries and public voting — the latter has been the reason behind the recent controversy.
Viewers can vote online, by text message or by phone up to 10 times each.
Each country in the competition also has a jury that chooses the 10 best songs and ranks them in the same way.
Countries cannot vote for their own song.
What did Israel's public broadcaster do?
About two weeks ago, Israel's participant in the competition, Noam Bettan pulished videos asking fans to use all 10 of their votes for the Israeli song.
Some viewed this as a violation of the recently updated competition rules.
Based on the 2026 changes to the rules, "participating broadcasters and artists are not permitted to actively engage in, facilitate or contribute to promotional campaigns by third parties that could influence the voting outcome".
"It was brought to our attention that videos with an on-screen instruction to 'vote 10 times for Israel' had been published and released by the artist representing KAN," Martin Green, director of the Eurovision Song Contest, said in a statement.
"The Voting Instructions of the Eurovision Song Contest that cover promotion are predominantly directed at discouraging large scale funded third-party campaigns, and we are satisfied that this video did not form part of such a campaign. However, employing a direct call to action to vote 10 times for one artist or song is also not in line with our rules nor the spirit of the competition."
When contacted by the Eurovision Song Contest organisers, KAN immediately removed the videos.
Responding to the warning, KAN said it "follows all EBU rules".
"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," it said.
Did the campaign change the result?
The simple answer is we don't know.
Israel is among the 25 grand finalists of the competition. All the details on voting and points will be shared after the grand final.
Green has said the instruction to "vote 10 times for Israel" shared by KAN "cannot affect the overall result and 50 per cent of all votes this year are supplied through professional juries".
"Nevertheless, we have issued a formal warning letter to KAN and will continue to monitor any promotional activities carefully and take appropriate action where needed," he said.
What happened last year?
This is the second year in a row that televotes for Israel's participant in the competition have raised questions.
In the 2025 competition, Israel, which received 60 points from the juries, won the public vote, receiving 83 per cent of its points from the public for its song "New Day Will Rise," and came second overall. The winner, Austria's "Wasted Love", got just 41 per cent of its votes from the public.
During the competition, the Israeli government posted online advertisements promoting its singer Yuval Raphael with the country's X account, run by its foreign ministry, saying "you can vote up to 20 times".
Eurovision organisers have halved the maximum number of public votes from 20 to 10 in this year’s contest.
"We saw some activity last year which we could describe as disproportionate marketing and promotional activity that we felt was out of sync with the nature of the show, so we put some rules in about that," Green told Reuters.
While Eurovision denied that Israel's government promotion has affected the results, a recent New York Times investigation has shown that in different countries, just a few thousand people casting 20 votes for Israel could have changed the outcome of the votes in that country.
Eurovision officials say there was nothing wrong with Israel's result in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, with Green saying it was the outcome of "a motivated diaspora" and a "great song".
How to watch Eurovision grand final in Australia?
SBS will broadcast the grand final live at 5am AEST on Sunday 17 May, with the SBS News online team covering all the action in a live blog.
For those who want a sleep-in — or to relive the excitement — SBS will air prime-time 'access all areas' broadcasts from 15–17 May at 7.30pm AEST.
You can watch the broadcasts live on SBS and SBS On Demand.
— With additional reporting by Reuters.
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