LTV, the Latvian national broadcaster, has revealed that Markus Riva will now perform in the final of Supernova, due to technical glitches during the voting in the second semi-final on Saturday.
The organisers of the competition explained that there was a problem with the online voting, which was used alongside telephone calls, text messages, Spotify streams and jury voting to determine which two songs would qualify for the final. A picture of Riga Reggae appeared above the link to Ritvars’ song on the online voting portal, which may have led to extra votes for Ritvars.
After evaluating the situation, the organisers decided to cancel the results of the Internet voting obtained from the vote on Supernova’s website and rely on the remaining votes instead. Summing up the results without the internet vote, Markus Riva is ranked second in this semi-final, so he will be given the opportunity to take part in the finals on February 24. Ritvars, who ranked third after reviewing the voting results, will still be allowed to take part in the final.
The third and final semi-final of Supernova 2018 will take place this Saturday, February 17. Two songs will qualify for the final on February 24, where the Latvian representative for Lisbon will be chosen.
This year’s Supernova is hosted by Dagmāra Legante, a television host and model, as well as Justs, who placed 15th at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 for Latvia. An online livestream, which added input from social media, is hosted by Toms Grēviņš and Edgars Bāliņs.