Polish broadcaster TVP decided people of Poland will vote only by SMS. It means 25 milion of Poles won't be able to vote tonight.
Only 35% of Poles have a mobile phone. It means 25 milion of people won't be able to vote tonight. It is said that was unfair, because everyone should be able to vote tonight. Most of the countries will use televoting plus SMS-voting.
SMS-voting was used in January to choose a Polish representative in Riga. TVP had huge problems to count all votes, and only 13 000 had been counted, instead of almost 400 000 given. All Poles remember: the situation, called a “scandal” by the Polish press, was a proof that the decision to resign voting with stationary phones was not the best decicion. Now it seems TVP forgot about that.
We don't know how many votes TVP expects this evening, but it's very possible the interest will be even bigger than in January.
TVP consulted its decision with EBU, so TVP seems to be ready for thousands of votes tonight.
The number of cellular phones per person in Poland varies depending on the source. Our source was Polish Główny Urząd Statystyczny.
