Sanremo in Turmoil: 6.5 Million Missing Votes Spark Outcry

The Sanremo Music Festival, Italy’s most beloved song competition, has once again found itself at the centre of controversy. This time, the buzz isn’t about the outfits or the performances, but a staggering 6.5 million votes that went missing during the final night of Sanremo 2024. The Authority for Communications Guarantees (AgCom) released a statement detailing the shocking discrepancies in the televoting process, and the fallout is nothing short of dramatic.

A Vote of Confidence? Hardly.

It all began on February 10th, when social media was flooded with complaints about malfunctioning televotes. Fans of the competing artists were up in arms, claiming their votes were not being counted. Despite assurances from RAI that the system was functioning correctly and that no votes would be lost, it appears the reality was far from it.

AgCom’s investigation revealed that out of 9.5 million votes sent via SMS, only 3 million were processed. The remaining 6.5 million votes were lost in what has been described as a «saturation of the processing capacity» of the televoting platform. In simpler terms, the system was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of votes and couldn’t handle the influx.

Numbers Don’t Lie

According to AgCom, 1.8 million votes were successfully processed and confirmed to users via SMS. Another 900,000 votes received messages informing them that their votes were not charged, and 300,000 votes were deemed invalid. This leaves a massive gap of 6.5 million votes that simply vanished into the ether.

TIM, the telecommunications company involved, analysed the unprocessed SMS votes and found that approximately 4.3 million of these were invalid due to users exceeding the voting limit of five votes per number. However, this still leaves 2.2 million potentially valid votes uncounted.

The Ripple Effect

The revelation of these missing votes has cast a shadow over the integrity of the festival’s voting process. While the outcome saw Angelina Mango crowned the winner, the legitimacy of her victory—and the fairness of the entire competition—is now under scrutiny. This isn’t just about hurt feelings and bruised egos; it’s about transparency and trust in a system where viewers spend millions on SMS votes without knowing if they count.

A Call for Reform

In response to the debacle, AgCom has called on RAI to overhaul the televoting system to handle higher volumes of votes more effectively. The authority insists that RAI must revise the technical specifications of the platform to prevent similar issues in the future and to restore public confidence in the voting process.

Source: Rolling Stones Italia