Daily Express have picked up on Saara potentially getting Finnish votes. Hope this doesn't impact her reputation as the winner if she does win:

http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-...te-Saara-Aalto

It's a silly article.

It would be absolutely absurd if it affected her reputation. She has no responsibility for the people who vote her and the methods they use.

If her fans want to come to the UK to vote, then so be it

I'm in Finland, and we can (and do) indeed vote for her. Change app store to UK, download the app and vote. It's not hard

not like she's the first one receiving international votes...

Don't think so if people in the UK turn against her.

It needs to be explained that Finland has a small population of about 5.5 million.

Never stopped anyone on here talking about "The Scottish vote",

If it's true about the Finnish Vote, then I say good on them
Obviously the Finnish population are more intelligent than the Irish who always complains they can't vote

Unfortunately, this does appear to be affecting Saara's odds though.

Despite being in the sing off, Matt is shortening in the odds whilst Saara drifts.

And the official statement from producers is
So it's a non-story, really. But might affect the public opinion nonetheless.

For the record I'm Finnish and haven't voted. Nor has anyone I know voted or really cared that much about voting even though they've followed her progress.

Gonna be interesting. She's finished second three times in different contests in Finland. Will she finish second again?

so this just confirmed then!

needs investigating really. if ever i have a bet on either matt or 5am, i will feel robbed if she wins. even though she genuinely having a momentum here in uk, not everyone here who likes her would bother voting even free thru app. well i don't!

Well it's not quite that easy - you need to sign up for a new iTunes account before you can download anything that's restricted to a different country.

For that you need a valid UK address and post code... and a new e-mail address.

So hardly something that the average person will bother with. The few that might go through the trouble make up for the fact that the other two acts have home coming performances in UK towns and both had buses filled with supporters whereas Saara's was empty.

But how is it possible to buy something from the UK iTunes store using a Finnish credit card? Isn't iTunes set up to block this? Or is it different for the EU? (Or is this not an issue because it's a free download?)

I've heard its a lot more complicated than just changing the store country - something that only a really dedicated fan would bother mucking around with.

You have to sign up via the iTunes software on a PC or Mac which allows you to leave the credit card info blank.

The whole thing is a non-story. When Pokemon Go was released and not yet available in the UK there were instructions how to get it from the US App Store and it is pretty complex. Even more difficult on Android devices.

Daily Express trying to sabotage the chances of a foreigner?

i am totally shocked.

I see they had Saara saying that she was visiting Helsinki today. Even before they got to Saara I knew what she'd say.

Just look at the comments below the article. Makes me sick.

The Article clearly states the same thing happened with 4th Impact and the votes coming from abroad are removed - so whilst the Finnish people may be attempting to vote it isn't registered - Saara's turn around therefore is just based on the UK voting, and the headline is clearly trying to de-rail her chance of winning - that's the unfair bit, as she clearly is the most talented and deserving winner!

I know. As far as I know Saara's living here. She's only gone over to Finland to see her family before Christmas.

Some of the videos on Saara's YouTube channel show just how good she is. I say some because others have obviously been 'enhanced' to sound studiolike.

Genuine question - is it actually in the rules that non-UK votes will be disallowed, or is it just presumed that the ability to get the voting app is geo-restricted? I mean, I'm pretty sure that the media are whipping this one up and it may actually be at the producers' behest, but if it's not actually specifically cited in the terms of X Factors own rules, then the votes should be allowable. In any case, I rather suspect that, in the grand scheme of things (with millions of votes cast), the number of Finnish votes invested enough to go to the extraordinary lengths needed to get the app is just tiny!

It's not really a surprise story coming from the Daily UKIP (gives them time off from making up stories about immigrants, Princess Diana and the weather I suppose), but it's still very sad how insular, nasty and sad much of our press has become.

Indeed. You're certainly not wrong there, especially with the afore-mentioned newspaper.

This comes out, and then it comes out the bosses are desperate for Matt to win, something funny going on, I really hope this doesn't effect Saaras chances, if her country has found away to vote for Saara that isn't her fault. Saara is by far the best there, really want her to win, she always puts on a show.