In a case of deja vu for television channel M-Net‚ a “voting glitch” has forced the broadcaster’s hand for one of their reality singing shows yet again.

During Sunday night’s live show of The Voice SA‚ it will be a case of lucky number thirteen for the contestants as the channel has decided to adjust the format allowing for an extra contestant to vie for the coach’s save or public vote.

According to a statement released by the channel‚ “approximately 8‚000” votes sent by Vodacom customers failed to deliver‚ meaning that they could not be attributed to the singing hopefuls.

The incident is said to have occurred between 20:15 and 21:52 on Thursday and was picked up during “regular monitoring”.

The performers will comprise one coach’s entire team‚ with the remaining contestants made up by the regulatory three from each of the remaining coaches’ teams.

Director of M-Net Channels‚ Jan du Plessis said: “Whenever there is a voting anomaly of any kind that might impact the results we will act immediately to resolve the matter to be fair to the talent involved.”

 M-Net added that an investigation into the matter revealed that the affected votes “could only have changed the outcome of the voting results for one of the teams…in which the votes were very close”.

In 2009 the channel was forced to declare two winners for Season V of Idols SA when it revealed that a miscount resulted in a miscalculation that excluded 200‚000 votes.