‘Strictly Come Dancing’ bosses have issued a response after Joe Sugg’s fans rallied together to try and find a loophole in the show’s voting system.
With the final just a day away, the popular YouTube vlogger has found himself at the centre of a voting scandal, after his fans shared a video showing international supporters how they can vote for him from abroad.
In their video, fans share a four-step plan for international fans to register their vote, in an attempt to swing the final in his favour.
In response, a ‘Strictly’ rep told Metro: “We regularly make updates to our technology to help prevent access to voting via the BBC website from outside the UK which breaks our voting terms and conditions.
“Our voting platforms are robust and we have stringent procedures in place as well as independent verification. Online voting requires a BBC log in and is freely available to users across the UK without a VPN.”
Meanwhile, an excerpt from the BBC’s full terms and conditions (the more extensive ones compared to the version read out every week by a celeb in front of the yellow curtain), reads: “The BBC reserves the right to disqualify votes if it has reasonable grounds to suspect fraudulent voting has occurred or if it considers there has been any deliberate attempt to manipulate the result.”
Joe is the first professional vlogger to ever land a spot on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, and has ended up being the only male celebrity in this year’s final.
He’ll go up against Ashley Roberts, Faye Tozer and Stacey Dooley in Saturday night’s live show, airing from 6.30pm on BBC One.