Mistake sees thousands of votes for The Voice finale go uncounted

A simple mistake has been one Aussie man get bombarded with thousands of texts and voicemails from people voting in The Voice finale.

A simple mistake made by thousands of Aussies when casting their votes for The Voice finale has meant a number of votes have gone uncounted.

Controversy erupted on social media on Sunday night, when the winner of the singing contest was announced as 24-year-old Lachie Gill from Rita Ora’s team.

Fans of Channel 7’s The Voice expressed disappointment with the result that saw “three people of colour” lose out on the $100,000 prize and a Universal Music Australia recording contract.

Now, it can be revealed that thousands of votes went uncounted after fans punched in the wrong phone number when voting via text.

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Lachie Gill (left) at The Voice semi-finals with fellow finalists Faith Sosene, Jordan Tavita, and Thando Sikwila. Picture: Supplied

Viewers were encouraged to vote by texting their favourite artist’s name to 0417 779 677, with a maximum of three votes per person.

However, Brisbane man Antoni, whose personal phone number is one number off from the correct text line, told news.com.au that many people had mistakenly sent their votes to him instead.

The 50-year-old said he had received thousands of texts and hundreds of calls since final voting started on May 22, with things ramping up significantly on Sunday night.

“I deleted the first few hundred (messages) because I thought I was being spammed, not realising people were voting. I have not watched the show and had no idea why people were texting me the contestant names,” he said.

“It wasn’t until I saw an advert with the mobile number posted that I realised how close it was to my number … and the penny dropped.

“I have probably a couple of thousand texts that could be added up, and a few hundred voice messages where people verbally voted.”

At no point did Channel 7 post the wrong number on its social media, website or on air throughout the voting period.

Antoni said his phone has been spammed with thousands of votes for The Voice.

He said he received hundreds of texts within a few minutes on the night of the finale.

Antoni said the situation got even more out of control on Sunday night during the finale.

Pictures provided by Antoni show hundreds of message and dozens of calls racked up in a matter of minutes.

Screenshots of a small portion of the texts received by Antoni, show the majority were in favour of Lachie.

About half of just under 50 messages included in the screenshots showed votes for Lachie, with the next highest number of votes coming in for Jordan, followed by Faith and then Thando.

However, with thousands of uncounted votes and hundreds of deleted messages, it is unclear how many more votes in total were meant for each contestant.

As an IT consultant with a busy schedule, Antoni said the whole situation has been extremely stressful as getting hundreds of calls and texts a day has meant using his phone as normal was almost impossible.

“As you can imagine, my mobile is key part of my work so having it go off at all times of the day and night, it got to a point where I had to put it in ‘do not disturb’ mode, which meant I have missed many calls and text messages as I had to try and decipher between real messages from colleagues vs all of the voting messages from random people,” he said.

Aussies were encouraged to send in texts to cast their votes. Picture: The Voice AU/Facebook

Antoni told news.com.au that he has his wife had tried to raise the issue with The Voice and Channel 7 through multiple channels, including email, Facebook and Instagram.

In one response his wife received via Instagram, the program reportedly said the voting was handled by an outsourcer and had “nothing to do with them”, the Brisbane man claimed.

“(For) my email complaint, I had a response I think on Thursday saying my complaint was being passed onto the appropriate department to handle it,” he said.

“I have not heard anything since.”

Channel 7 responded to a message from Antonio’s wife apologising for any inconvenience caused by people incorrectly texting or calling their number.

News.com.au understands audience voting is handled by an external company and compliance protocols mean they can’t accept any votes that are made via an incorrect phone number.

This follows online controversy after Lachie beat a diverse trio including Thando Sikwila from Team Keith Urban, Jordan Tavita from Team Guy Sebastian, and Faith Sosene from Team Jess Mauboy.

Yep a white boy with no voice won #TheVoiceAU 🙄
What more could go wrong aye? Stop white washing everything. Stop making us all look bad. We must demand to see all the votes that came in @TheVoiceAU

— Ted Lundy (@teddy_lundy) May 29, 2022

Not happy at all with the result on @TheVoiceAU you had 3 amazing singers with beautiful voices and the white guy with an average voice wins please make it make sense #TheVoiceAU

— DonskiJazz (@DonskiJazz) May 29, 2022

Really bad, 3 people if colour with incredible voices and the one white guy with tge average voice wins. Well done Australia providing yet again if you aren't white you can't win #TheVoiceAU

— 💧 Jenny Mul (@jenharl) May 29, 2022

I spoke too soon! of course #TheVoiceAU viewers would choose the only white person in the line-up🥴 get it together Australia https://t.co/agbVz82EsXpic.twitter.com/3Kwv5fjEOJ

— Ayan (a-yarn) 🇸🇴 (@waa_ayan) May 29, 2022

The Voice runners-up have also reacted to the show’s finale.

Faith, 25, took to Instagram to say she was “so proud” of Lachie, before seemingly suggesting there was a wider issue at play.

“We already knew Australia was gonna love & pick you! You’re simply perfect for them.”

Faith has since edited the caption, deleting “for them” and replacing it with, “You’re simply perfect.”

She added: “[Thando and Jordan] We must work harder for our future generations to win. Off to work we go.”

Elsewhere, Thando, 29, said Lachie was a “legend” and that he “absolutely deserves it.”

“Can’t wait to see where this victory takes you,” she wrote, alongside a photo of the pair.

Jordan, 23, echoed Thando’s sentiment, as he also threw his support behind his fellow runners-up.

“My sisters WOW! We got a bright future ahead,” he wrote. “One door closes and 1000 will open for us!!!”

Lachie also posted a lengthy statement on his Instagram page congratulating the three finalists.

“Jordan Faith & Thando. What can I say other than Thankyou,” he began.

“Thankyou for sharing your gifts with me and Australia. You will continue to inspire me every single day moving forward and I KNOW and I MEAN IT! That you will have amazing careers in this industry and have so much too (sic) offer to Australia and beyond.”

Channel 7 has been contacted for comment.

Originally published as Mistake sees thousands of votes for The Voice finale go uncounted