How Mae De La Rue used SMS voting to eliminate fraud and increase participation

When Mae De La Rue took over as director of Burlesque Muse in 2021, she was not just inheriting a national competition — she was inheriting the challenge of running it in a hybrid world. Moving the Grand Finale online made the show more accessible to audiences across Australia and overseas, but it also created a new problem: how to run live audience voting quickly, fairly and securely. 

In past in-person events, voting was easier to control. Audience members were assigned a ticket and could cast one vote. But when the competition moved online, the voting system relied on a shared QR code that sent everyone to the same landing page. That made the process vulnerable to fraud, and suspicious voting activity forced organisers to exclude a significant portion of votes. With only a 15-minute live window to collect and verify hundreds of votes, Mae needed a better solution. 

SMS stood out because it was simple, fast and cost-effective. But for it to work in a live competition setting, Mae needed more than just text delivery. She needed unique shortened links for each voter, international messaging support for viewers overseas, and after-hours help in Australia in case something went wrong close to showtime. Sinch Engage (formerly MessageMedia) gave her that mix of speed, flexibility and support.

The new setup made voting far easier to manage. Each audience member received an SMS with a unique link, which meant votes could be tracked properly and link-sharing could be monitored. That removed the biggest weakness from the earlier system and let Mae focus on running the event instead of worrying about whether the vote could be trusted. 

Speed mattered just as much as security. Voting had to happen and be counted in real time, so the system needed to deliver messages quickly and make it easy for people to act straight away. Mae also kept a fallback link ready at the five-minute mark in case anyone had not received their text yet, which added another layer of reliability to the live show.

The results were strong. In previous in-person shows using QR codes or voting cards, Burlesque Muse captured an average of 68% of audience votes. With the SMS voting system in place, 165 out of 193 votes were cast during the Grand Finale — an 85% participation rate. More than 72% of votes came through within the first five minutes, showing just how quickly the audience responded. 

Just as importantly, the integrity of the vote improved. No extra votes were counted, and voter fraud dropped to 0%. For Mae, that meant the competition could keep the audience vote as an important part of the outcome without worrying that the process itself would undermine trust.

The new system also made the event more inclusive. Because the platform could handle different phone number formats and international messaging, supporters outside Australia could take part too, including viewers in New Zealand, Italy and the Netherlands. That gave Burlesque Muse a broader reach than it had ever had before. 

For Mae De La Rue, the value of Sinch Engage was not just higher engagement. It was the ability to run a live national competition with a voting system that was faster, fairer and easier for people to use — helping the event feel more accessible for audiences while protecting the integrity of the result.