Finland’s broadcaster Yle is the next country to raise concerns with the EBU about the Eurovision voting system. It comes following the 2025 edition that took place last Saturday.
JJ from Austria won overall after topping the jury vote. Meanwhile, Israel’s Yuval Raphael finished in second place after scoring highest with the televote. The high number of public votes, following a reported voting campaign conducted by the Israeli government, has raised questions about the fairness of the results.
Yle to discuss Eurovision voting system with EBU
Juha Lahti, Head of Yle’s Entertainment Department, announced that the Finnish national broadcaster intends to hold a series of discussions with the EBU regarding the functionality of the current voting system. He expressed concerns about the fact that a single person can cast up to 20 votes per credit card, raising questions about how this might create an imbalance in the competition:
“We will definitely ask the EBU whether it is time to update these rules or at least examine whether the current rules allow for abuses.”
Israel’s voting campaign used promotional material in multiple languages to encourage people to cast up to 20 votes for Yuval Raphael.
On the night of the grand final, Finland’s highest number of televote points went to Sweden, while Israel received the second-highest amount.
Additionally, Lahti is calling for a solution to address the discrepancy between the public and jury votes, which each currently contribute 50% to the final result. While he advocates for the public vote to carry more influence, he also emphasises the importance of ensuring that the voting process remains fair, transparent, and unmanipulated:
“Everyone probably remembers Käärijä’s situation [in 2023]. If the public votes had been weighted more heavily then, Finland would already have hosted Eurovision.
“Especially if we are moving towards giving public votes more weight, it should seriously be considered whether it makes sense for one person to be able to vote twenty times”
Finland’s Eurovision selection show, UMK, currently uses a 75% / 25% split between the public and jury votes respectively. This effectively means the public is able to completely overrule the jury’s decisions — in 2024, Windows95man finished last with the UMK jury but ultimately won the contest after topping the televote.
Yle doesn’t question Finland’s participation
Whilst Belgium’s VRT has warned the EBU they may not take part in upcoming Eurovision editions unless changes are made to the voting procedure, Finland has made it clear that their participation is not currently up for debate.
Although members of the Finnish public and some Finnish artists have called for the country to withdraw from Eurovision due to Israel’s participation, Yle has stated that it has no intention of raising the issue with the EBU.
Israel’s involvement will not influence Finland’s decision to participate, and preparations for UMK 2026 will begin as planned in the autumn:
“We have no plans [of raising Israel’s participation as an issue with the EBU]. Now we’ll do the normal post-Eurovision debriefing and then start planning for Finland’s Contest for New Music UMK.”
Erika Vikman speaks about Israel’s result
This year’s Finnish representative, Erika Vikman, spoke with Helsingin Sanomat upon her return to Finland about her Eurovision experience. Last Sunday, during an interview at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, Erika expressed her feelings about the voting process, stating that she felt the televote was unfair.
“I read in Helsingin Sanomat today that Israel has been able to manipulate votes to a great extent. I feel that it is very unfair.”
She expressed her disappointment about finishing in 11th place, admitting she had hoped to end up in the top ten. Erika also shared how exhausting it was—for both her and KAJ, the Finnish comedy group representing Sweden this year—to be constantly compared throughout the contest.
For now, Erika plans to focus on her upcoming summer tour and the release of new music, with no current intention of returning to Eurovision in the future.
It’s actually wild how you still bring up Israel when the broadcaster itself didn’t mention it as the problem. Give it a rest. As for Erika, she was a favourite of mine but unfortunately turned out to just be a sore loser
Sore loser for expressing that she had been hoping to get into top ten?
Attention seekers like Erika should not have a voice. She portrayed herself as a victim throughout Eurovision, lying about her outfit and complaining that she was wronged by the president. Now that she failed to secure a spot in the top 10, she complains about Israel; she should look at her tragic performance and boring song. It’s pathetic that she considers herself a strong woman; if she were in Yuval Raphael’s situation, she would probably have given up and locked herself in a room crying under the covers…
“Everyone probably remembers Käärijä’s situation [in 2023]. If the public votes had been weighted more heavily then, Finland would already have hosted Eurovision”.
Oh dear, they’re still sore about that.
People will always be sore for a huge injustice. Newsflash to you.
In my opinion, the voting system is flawed for both the jury and the televote. 50/50 is a perfect balance if there are rules in place that ensures the public opinion is heard, but without the political voting. The problem with runaway jury winners such as Sweden 2023 and Switzerland 2024, is that people actually pay to vote – juries don’t – and so the public should have a final say in who wins. The overwhelming televote winner should weigh more than the overwhelming jury winner. My proposal is to have a cap on how many points you can receive… Read more »
I voted for Erika and don’t regret it one bit, but hearing her statement about Israel engineering the results made me feel sorry for her to say the least.
Lol, you havent voted for Finland, we all know that. Stop lying and playing a victim
Are you hallucinating dear?
A Polish friend of mine voted 100 times for Poland by creating one-use online credit cards…
If you think some “others” didn’t exploit this, then I have nothing to say.
I would suggest adopting the Junior model: ditch the national televotes and have a global vote with the points being distributed proportionally to the number of votes received.
In other words, give even more chances for Israel to win… the hell no.
Late last night I sent YLE my feedback with regards to the voting system. I reckon both the juries and the televote must go and be replaced by an ID based system (free of charge) that resembles the elections. If there has to be an additional show or three to reveal the results, so be it. Besides, the more live shows there are, the better, eh? The contest must be fair.
Hopefully all of these concerns will be listened and seen as valid response to the outcome of two previous contest in Malmö & Basel, this has gone too far.
Good. Four countries in one day. I’m sure at least Ireland, Norway and Iceland will follow, but I bet there will be more. If half of the broadcasters speak up, surely they can’t ignore it anymore..
It’s only been three days since the final, and we’re just getting started.
RTE (Ireland) asked for review of voting this evening.
Well, I tried to give Erika a top 10 result, the Austrian televote gave her 2 points. And the Austrian jury gave her 12! I approve. However, before you think they have taste, I should add that they gave 10 to Malta. What stuff do you have to smoke to think Malta was 2nd best? On the other hand, they didn’t smoke enough to give Israel a point, so there’s that. And considering the overall televote, the 7 points to Israel are relatively harmless. Lucio got our 10! Lucio beat Israel with zero campaigns.
Their jury gave Finland 10 points more than their televoters. So why exactly is Lahti complaining about that?
The 12-points to that attention-seeking representative from Finland is pathetic…. she deserved last place.
Erika is actually doing Finland a huge cultural duty by empowering a nation that has been oppressed for most of its existence to rise up and find their voices after hundreds of years of repression. Does that make her attention-seeking and pathetic? One might argue that name calling and chastising a culture they are too ignorant to understand pathetic. Personally, I think Erika is incredibly brave, and fiercely intelligent to begin a cultural movement in a way that is fun, playful, and less cumbersome. We may have to disagree based on our own levels of understanding the song and its… Read more »
She’s a pop star. Literally a part of the job is to be skilled at grabbing attention,
Next year I’m going to Eurovision with a crew of 100 people and we will be whistling throughout the performance for Finland and other clowns from the losing countries…
You could. Or you could serve meals to the homeless, or bring toys and play games with kids stuck in hospitals. The energy level would be about the same.