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\n\tMELBOURNE, Australia \u2014 Just months after the 2024 Music Victoria Awards were confirmed<\/a> to have been targeted in an egregious occurrence of voter fraud, organizers have made the decision to suspend the 2025 event.<\/p>\n \n\tThe 2024 edition of the awards \u2013 which seeks to honor and recognize the talents of musicians in the Australian state of Victoria \u2013 was held in Melbourne on Oct. 24, though it was later announced on Nov. 27 that an \u201cunknown assailant\/s\u201d had targeted the voting process and manipulated several of the publicly-voted categories.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn a statement, Music Victoria, the trade body that produces the annual ceremony, explained<\/a> they had become aware of \u201cunusual activity within the third-party voting system used for the public voted categories.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFollowing a thorough internal investigation, and liaisons with \u201cthe third-party voting system Award Force, cyber security experts and legal advice,\u201d it was discovered that \u201cthousands of misregistered votes\u201d had been \u201cfalsely attributed to nominees, resulting in a change to the recipients of five of the six publicly voted categories.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs a result of the discovery, the rightful winners were later reinstated and Music Victoria insisted it will \u201ccarve out space\u201d in the 2025 ceremony to \u201cpresent the winners in front of our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n