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Cape Town – A voting failure has hit M-Net's The Voice South Africa with the pay-TV broadcaster saying the late delivery of 8 000 SMS votes through Vodacom will see 13 singers instead of 12 compete in Sunday evening's live show.
In 2009 M-Net was mired in a viewers' voting scandal when Sasha-Lee Davids was announced as the winner of the 5th season of Idols although Jason Hartman was the real winner with 200 000 more votes that were not counted in time.
Technical voting problems also impacted Idols and the contestants in 2002, and again in the 10th season in 2014.
Now a voting problem is impacting M-Net's latest reality singing competition, The Voice SA, produced by AMPN in conjunction with the international format right holder Talpa international.
M-Net says 8 000 "lost" votes could change the outcome regarding which contestant gets the boot in one of the performing groups on Sunday night.
This means that instead of 12 singers, there will be 13 singers on The Voice SA on Sunday night: 3 each from three coaches, and 4 from one coach.
M-Net isn't identifying the coach and the group that's affected by the technical voting glitch.
An investigation by M-Net and auditors Deloitte & Touche found that the delivery failure of the 8 000 SMS votes could have affected the outcome of the voting results for one of the teams since the difference between two of the singers were less than 8 000 votes.
The 8 000 votes – although not counting towards saving a contestant – will be used for another viewers' prize.
"M-Net is committed to being a responsible and transparent broadcaster," says Jan du Plessis, director of M-Net channels in a statement regarding the voting problem.
"We have an excellent and dedicated team who monitors the voting on our reality shows closely.
"Whenever there is a voting anomaly of any kind that might impact the results, we will act immediately to resolve the matter to be fair to the talent involved".
