San Marino wasn't really pleased - and with all the reasons in the world! - when EBU just made up their televote in the 2016 Eurovision song contest randomly by combining five other countries' televotes and thus overruling the people of the tiny state altogether and royally. Angry SMRTV told they were not even heard in the matter beforehand and told they have an alternative proposal and it's now made public and it all makes sense.
In short: demoscopic jury, a bit like in the Sanremo festival. A certain number of Sammarinese doc who will watch at least two of the shows and vote during the televoting windows. This "panel" vote would then form the Sammarinese televote as the first choice. Only in the case of problems and failed results the EBU's alternative would be used as a back up.
SMRTV has studied the proposal in detail and it seems all water proof. Should EBU not accept it it's only because they want to be nasty as there really is no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to do such voting instead. The demoscopic group of people would be gathered by external company and would have no relation to SMRTV or other medias.
Back to EBU's alternative used in 2016. Five countries that could have been anything from Iceland to Greece, from Ireland to Belarus - we don't know. EBU could have even made them up to help someone and damage someone else. In theory. No one knows. There's no doubt they won't have had the same taste as the regular Sammarinese, that's for sure. Most likely the Sammarinese televoters would vote pretty much in line with the Italian ones to start with ...
Anyways, EBU will study the proposal in time for the 2017 contest and as San Marino is back, maybe they have already given it some green light...
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