Televoting at Sanremo Festival 2024.
The latest edition of the Sanremo Festival has raised numerous controversies over the voting system, in particular the reversal that led to the victory of Angelina Mango at the expense of Geolier.
Agcom has found serious irregularities in the televoting system. Following checks carried out by the authority, it emerged that over 2.2 million votes, which could have been valid, were not recorded by the platform. This data has unleashed a wave of criticism and suspicion, since it directly influenced the outcome of the race, with the victory of Angelina Mango on Geographer after a reversal of the results thanks to the votes of the press room and the radio jury. TIM would have operated in line with the conditions set out in the tender which however were deemed insufficient. Therefore, Agcom urged Rai to implement rigorous measures to guarantee the correctness and transparency of the voting system, essential to maintain the public's trust in the Festival.
AGCOM – PRESS RELEASE TELEVOTING
The Communications Regulatory Authority examined in today's meeting the results of the checks carried out by the offices on compliance with the conditions of transparency and effectiveness of the televoting held on the occasion of the 74th edition of the Sanremo Festival, following the numerous reports received.
Particular attention was paid to the progress of the Televoting on the last evening of the Festival.
In the last evening, approximately 1.8 million votes were billed with a corresponding feedback to the user via SMS, another approximately 0.9 million received an SMS informing them of a failed charge, while 0.3 million invalid votes, although processed, were not found.
The checks carried out revealed that, in the face of a number of votes via SMS accounted for equal to approximately 3 million, the number of SMS actually received by the platform was approximately 9.5 million. The excess value not accounted for was caused by a saturation of the processing capacity of the televoting platform.
Furthermore, TIM communicated to the Authority that it had become aware of the aforementioned actual number of SMS received on the last evening, not during the Festival, but only following a subsequent analysis, consequent to the Authority's request for information.
TIM also reported that, following the Authority's request for information, it analyzed the unaccounted SMS. It found that approximately 4.3 million had exceeded the limit of 5 valid votes, with the consequence that the potentially valid and unprocessed votes were equal to approximately 2.2 million.
The Authority verified that, despite the results that emerged, the platform operated in line with the Service Level Agreements requested by RAI when awarding the Televoting service, which provided for a maximum limit of SMS processing per hour, identified on the basis of traffic flows from previous editions.
This limit appears today, in light of the analysis carried out, evidently inadequate and in this sense the Authority has deemed it appropriate to call upon RAI to review the Technical Specifications of the Televoting platform, with reference to the capacity to process higher flows of votes via SMS, in order to prevent similar future disruptions, communicating the actions undertaken to the Authority.
Click continue for updates on the shoe issue John Travolta.
