The joint winners of this year's 'Idols' competition urged fans to put the late vote saga behind them.

A technical glitch caused the late delivery of about 600 000 votes after Sasha-Lee Davids was announced the winner.

Grapevine Interactive managed M-Net's SMS voting system and said it did not have enough capacity to handle the amount of votes received during the last hour of the show.

After the recount it emerged Jason Hartman was the winner but M-Net decided the pair would share the title and receive the same prizes.

Hartman said the public should stop calling for Davids to step down and give up her title.

"We've both have come out as winners and this is music and music is a beautiful thing and we need to understand that that is over now," said Hartman.

Davids said her fans should focus on the music: "If M-Net told me you have to step down and give the prizes I would have gladly given it to him because I think he deserves it."