Eurovision phone voting system let everybody down

Net Results/Karlin Lillington: What could possibly have been the idea behind spending money on a voting system that was potentially unreliable, failed to perform as its supporters had expected and whose malfunctions could have left thousands unable to cast a vote? The whole situation was truly appalling.

But, for the disenfranchised, at least there was the dubious consolation of watching people dressed like Cro-Magnons whip each other and shake their hair.

I'm speaking, of course, of the Irish voting debacle in last Saturday's Eurovision Song Contest.

Granted, Irish voters couldn't do anything to help Chris Doran get any more points than the seven cast in his direction by the British. But going by my own experience, I don't think more than one-sixth of voters could get through to vote.

My ratio is totally unscientific but is based on the fact that six of us spent 10 minutes repeatedly dialling in to vote. I was the only person to successfully get through - and I only got through one time. I tried about 25 times. You really had to want to vote.

But come on, folks. This is 2004 and we are supposed to have a state-of-the-art digital phone exchange in the Republic.

RTÉ said that demand was too high for the system - the same excuse offered last year when the same thing happened.

I estimate we made about 100 calls of which a single one got through.

And okay, so it's the Eurovision and not the European elections and nobody, as they say, died (except poor Mr Doran, on stage - there were some pretty ropey notes in his rendition of a song that should have done a bit better than it did).

But the technical incompetence of this really annoys me. Surely demand can be estimated - allowing some extra margin for unexpected enthusiasm from the Irish populace - and capacity brought in to cope with the onslaught on the phone systems. It's not as if there were real people answering the phones - if you did get through, you got a recorded message.

This is a straightforward computerised vote-casting system linked to an extremely brief phone call. Yet RTÉ looks like a chump for not getting this right.

Moreover, so do our phone companies. Why was RTÉ not advised by the phone provider more accurately on the level of service it would need to cope with a large television audience trying to vote by phone within a tiny window of time?

If it was so advised, why did RTÉ not listen?

Even if you are just having a good laugh at the show, it is disappointing not to be able to say nil points to the Cro-Magnons and instead put in a vote for the boppy Swedish number or those tattooed Turks.

I imagine many children were really disappointed when they were not able to participate in what was supposed to be the big high-tech, involve-the-audience bit of this silly but always fun international song contest.

I'm sure that in more homes than the one I was in, talk turned to RTÉ's hopelessness at getting the voting system right two years running, with equal lashings for phone companies for not seeming to be able to cope with an onslaught of calls. And why was there no texting option? Welcome to Europe's technology hub.

Who did I vote for? I confess that the Swedish entry got my vote, though this was slightly rigged - I was the guest of a Swede and was enjoying an authentic Swedish smorgasbord and tasty cocktails.

I think that before next year, the Government's Voting Commission should examine the whole RTÉ Eurovision voting set-up. The public needs to have confidence that its collective voice on such important matters is heard.

Meanwhile, here's a diary note for anyone interested in the software patents issue or just a potentially feisty evening of discussion. Free Software movement founder Richard Stallman will be speaking at Trinity College on May 24th, at 7:30 pm. The talk will be held in the McNeill Theatre, which is in the Hamilton Buildings (the end of campus near Westland Row)

klillington@irish-times.ie

weblog: http://weblog.techno-culture.com