The journalist and Eurofan Juan Carlos Piña entered the Eurovision website to vote this Saturday night. “When you access your country and then all the candidates come out, with a note that says you can broadcast 20 votes,” he says. And he went to the next page, where he was asked for an email and a card. It cost 1.09 euros. By phone and SMS were slightly more expensive.
“After entering the card, the votes are verified and supposed to be cast,” adds Piña. “Nowhere I had to identify with name and surname,” he says. Each user could, therefore, cast 20 votes with a card and an email. The system did not send a message to verify that the mail was real. So what would be needed to vote for another 20 times? Only another card and another email.
This deduction does not require thinking much. Eurovision’s own page suggested it at the end of voting, as they would demonstrate of thanks from several countries: “Thank you for voting! We value your contribution! Each payment card is limited to a transaction, regardless of the number of votes cast. To vote again with another card, please return to the vote summary to select new votes.”
Electronic vote is a laborious resource that has never been used in more delicate processes for its complexity and darkness. “The electronic vote is the vote in the Electronic Urn, what they have done in Eurovision is a simulation of telematic vote or remote vote,” says Justo Carracedo, a pioneer in Spain of the research on electronic vote. “So that you can talk about vote, the group of people who have the right to vote and guarantee that they only vote once. Without this detail, the word ‘vote’ is left over,” ditch.
The ease with which a group mobilized with voters can mock the system is amazing. online, in addition to 7,283 by phone and 23,840 by SMS. For Israel to win the 12 popular vote points that Spain gave, it should only be the most voted. A group of people mobilized with a cause (either Israel or Ukraine) can easily tip that balance with a few cards. While the rest of the voters choose countries according to their musical taste or sympathies – with what their votes are more distributed – the mobilized group votes in block to its candidate, and thus manages to lead the ranking.
“The mobilization is important,” says Luis Panizo, a professor at the University of León. “But what worries me is that no electronic voting system is safe if it is not verifiable and for this State throughout the process, ”explains Panizo.
This technical difficulty allows you to think about other possibilities, although none is possible to demonstrate from the outside or, probably, at this point in the contest: a traditional hack has the difficulty of leaving a trace if a huge effort is not made, but it is not disposable. There are those who have suggested social networks advertising campaigns. The country has seen ads in Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram in favor of several artists and none seems to have had a remarkable impact. Of course, via email or WhatsApp can also forward mass messages. Its result would be the same as with a very mobilized group: the fact that it is the second year that occurs with Israel, after the attacks of October 2023, can give an idea of the origin of motivation.
A handful of companies have created more or less sophisticated systems of electronic vote. The best, in fact, is not doing very well, says Panizo. “Recently, more than 20 companies that make telematic vote have appeared. We have audited some and the best do not hire them.
The company in charge of the management of the vote in Eurovision is the German eleven, whose central business is not the telematic vote, but “to create and apply technology for live interaction in times of peak.” Eurovision’s central concern is that all users can vote and, therefore, pay, during the brief time window in which it can be done. To achieve this, and malicious attacks. If public officials are among that group from a specific country with a VPN [servicios que permiten conectarse desde un país y hacer ver que el usuario está en otro]which is something that these systems can detect, does not seem decisive.
The Eurovision system allows mass voting per country, so a limited effort of a minority can be key. “This electronic vote has no future. In serious electoral processes, no one is used in clubs, associations, companies. You have cheaper solutions, until one day there is a problem,” says Panizo.
