Latvia | Markus Riva Qualifies For Supernova Final Following Online Voting Error

Latvia are in the thick of their Eurovision 2018 selection format Supernova and one of Latvia's biggest artists Markus Riva has been thrown a lifeline in reaching Lisbon, after today being added to the final after initially being eliminated on Saturday.

Markus is competing in his fifth straight selection to represent Latvia and this weekend performed his entry "This Time" in a slightly reformed Supernova format, in which seven songs will fight for the two qualification spots for the final each week, the top two are selected via a combination of a jury score and a public score, on the Saturday night MADARA and Ritvars advanced to the final and were announced as the top two, leaving Markus' hopes of Eurovision in tatters again.

However today LTV have come out and said Markus Riva has now qualified for the final and will compete on Febuary 24th after a technical glitch was found affecting the online voting section. The glitch reported to be a picture of fellow semi final act Riga Reggae was displayed over Ritvars voting portal, meaning the Latvian public could've been falsely voting for Ritvars when they intended to vote for Riga Reggae, who were eliminated that evening also. Due to this inconseistency the internet vote from the heat has dropped and the other modes of public votings which were via mobile and SMS has been used, when the internet voting was dropped from the heat, the results changed, placed Markus Riva second and therefore in a qualification spot, pushing Rivtars into third.

To resolve the issue, LTV has decided Markus Riva will join MADARA and Rivtars in the final. Due to it being an internal error and not an error taken by any of the acts Markus nor Rivtars will be punished and therefore will both compete, this will make the final of Supernova as seven song final as opposed to the original six.

Are you happy Markus has been given this seocnd chance? What do you think of his Supernova entry? Listen below and let us know your thoughts!