Eurovision Song Contest organisers have clarified how voting procedures have been tweaked ahead of next week’s live shows. At the end of 2025, changes were announced that aimed to “strengthen trust, transparency and audience engagement” after bodies such as the Dutch national broadcaster AVROTROS alleged “interference by the Israeli government” in last year’s contest.
When this new set of rules was voted through, a subsequent vote on Israel’s participation – already controversial amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East – was called off. Nations such as Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland and Slovenia then announced boycotts.
Both Israel’s national broadcaster KAN and the EBU have denied any suggestion that the televote was manipulated, but now a Q&A with Thomas Niedermeyer, General Manager of Once Germany GmbH, the contest’s official voting partner, has laid out what has changed for 2026 and how the process is being safeguarded.
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For a start, the EBU has lowered the voting limit to 10 per viewer per voting method, down from the previous 20. An online vote is only valid if the user’s credit card is registered to the country from which the vote is being placed.
“The system enforces multiple safeguards: it blocks voting outside the official window, prevents voting for one’s own country, limits total votes, and applies fraud detection measures such as verifying payment origin and preventing misuse of stolen cards,” Niedermeyer explained.
“Payment methods such as credit cards carry country-of-origin data. These are used to ensure votes are attributed to the correct country and to prevent users from bypassing national voting restrictions.”
Asked what safeguards are in place to prevent attempts at manipulating the system, Niedermeyer said that “for security reasons, not all measures can be disclosed” – but confirmed that controls include “real-time validation of vote timing and voting limits” and “verification of payment authenticity and origin”.
BBC
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It’s not just the public vote that has been looked at: the jury system has, too. While the semi-final results were decided by public vote alone in 2023, 2024 and 2025, juries will return for 2026, with each country’s expert panel requiring “diversity in age, background and gender”. Jury votes and public votes will carry near-equal weighting at the semi-finals and the final.
“Jurors are explicitly prohibited from discussing their rankings with anyone or expressing their preferences publicly – including on social media. Each juror signs an undertaking, as well as their individual voting sheet, affirming they judged the songs independently,” Niedermeyer said.
This year the United Kingdom is represented by Look Mum No Computer, with other acts including Delta Goodrem on behalf of Australia.
Meanwhile, 2023 UK entrant Mae Muller has explained why she signed an open letter last year calling for Israel to be removed amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2026 airs on Saturday 16 May, with the Semi-Finals airing on Tuesday 12 and Thursday 14 May. They will air live on BBC One and iPlayer, as well as via BBC Radio 2 and BBC Sounds.
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Shaun is an Evening News Editor at Digital Spy, with over a decade of experience reporting on all things pop culture. He has written for outlets including Metro, Attitude, Huffington Post, The Mirror, Yahoo!, Pink News and Express Online; specialising in TV, movies, soaps, music and LGBTQ+ issues. He is also a BAFTA Rocliffe-winning scriptwriter, having written episodes of the soap Hollyoaks, the official Steps musical Here & Now and multiple Offie Award-nominated plays. He studied English Literature and Drama at the University of East Anglia, and will happily talk at length about Desperate Housewives to anyone who’ll listen.