Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest

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There have been many varied voting systems at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Currently, the Contest winner is selected by means of a modified version of the Borda count. Each country ranks all the entries and assigns 12 points to their favourite entry; 10 points to their second favourite entry; and 8 down to 1 point to their third to tenth favourites. Countries are not allowed to vote for themselves.

The current method for ranking entries is by a telephone vote (televoting) among the viewers. In the past, small demographically balanced juries were used to rank the entries. Juries are still used when televoting malfunctions or is impractical. For example, in 2003 Eircom's telephone polls system ceased to operate normally. The Irish broadcaster, RTÉ, did not receive the votes on time and instead used a panel of judges. (Later, the Russian entry t.A.T.u. held Ireland responsible for Russia losing the Contest. Just three points separated Russia and winners Turkey. The Russian act insisted that had Ireland used a phone vote they would have been awarded more points and taken the title; however, no evidence exists to back up this claim.)

The 1956 Contest did not have regional voting. The BBC had used the idea of contacting regional juries by telephone in their national competition to choose their 1956 song. Bizarrely, the UK's song was chosen after the date of the international final but the EBU adopted the idea of contacting the international juries by telephone and this was introduced in 1957 and used until 1993. In 1994, the Contest saw the first satellite 'vision' link-up to juries. See below.

The presenters of the Contest connect by satellite to each country in turn, inviting the spokesperson to read out that country's votes in French or English. The presenters then repeat the votes in the alternate language, following the formula: "Country name, number points. Nom du pays, nombre de points" (but putting French first if the spokesperson is reading the points in French). For example: "United Kingdom, twelve points. Le Royaume-Uni, douze points." Due to time constraints in 2004 and 2005 (as 36 and 39 countries took part) the voting was only translated from English to French and vice-versa istead of repeating the votes that were said; for example, if a country's spokesperson announced their votes in English, the presenters would not repeat the English vote but instead they would instantly translate into French. To offset the extension to voting time caused by the increased number of participating countries, from the 2006 Contest, each country's 1- to 7-point votes were simply added automatically to the scoreboard as that country's spokesperson was introduced, with only the 8, 10 and 12-point scores being read out.

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[edit] Tie-breakers

In the event of a tie for first place after all the points have been announced, there is a tie-break procedure. It was realised that a tie-break procedure need be predetermined following the 1969 Contest, where France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom tied for first place. In 1969, since no tie-breaking system had been previously decided, it was determined that all four countries be jointly awarded the title.

As the rules currently stand, the first tie-breaker is to count the number of countries who assigned any points to each entry in the tie. If there is still a tie, the second tie breaker is to count the number of countries who assigned 12 points to each entry in the tie. Tie-breaks continue with 10 points, 8 points, and so on until the tie is resolved. Ties for other places are only officially resolved if they matter for qualification purposes (see below).

In 1991, the tie-break procedure was put into action when Sweden and France both scored 146 points after the voting had finished. Back then the tie-break rule was slightly different, that is the first tie-break rule (the country voted for by the most other countries wins) was not yet in use. Both Sweden and France had received the maximum of 12 points four times. Only when the number of 10 point scores had been counted, Sweden, represented by Carola with the song "Fångad av en stormvind" (Captured by a Love Storm), could acclaim its third victory. Thus, the French song, "C'est le dernier qui a parlé qui a raison" (It's he who speaks last that is right) performed by Amina, came second with the smallest margin ever to spare to the winner. Ironically, had the current procedure (introduced in 2002) been in use, then France would have won, since it obtained points from 18 countries, and Sweden only from 17.

[edit] Nul points

Since each of the participating countries casts a series of votes, it is rare that a song fails to receive any votes at all. Under the modern rules this means that the song failed to make the top ten most popular songs in any country. When it does happen, it is known as nul points (pron. nool pwa'), from the practice of reading results in French as well as English during the broadcast. It should be noted, however, that the phrase nul points is never actually read out during the presentation of the Contest.

Entries which received nul points, since the introduction of the current scoring system in 1975 are as follows:

  • In 1978, Norway's "Mil etter mil" by Jahn Teigen.
  • In 1981, Norway's "Aldri i livet" by Finn Kalvik.
  • In 1982, Finland's "Nuku pommiin" by Kojo.
  • In 1983, two entries: Turkey's "Opera" by Çetin Alp and Short Wave and Spain's "¿Quién maneja mi barca?" by Remedios Amaya.
  • In 1987, Turkey's "Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne" by Seyyal Taner and Grup Locomotif.
  • In 1988, Austria's "Lisa, Mona Lisa" by Wilfried.
  • In 1989, Iceland's "Það sem enginn sér" by Daníel Ágúst.
  • In 1991, Austria's "Venedig im Regen" by Thomas Forstner.
  • In 1994, Lithuania's "Lopšinė mylimai" by Ovidijus Vyšniauskas.
  • In 1997, two entries: Norway's "San Francisco" by Tor Endresen and Portugal's "Antes do adeus" by Célia Lawson.
  • In 1998, Switzerland's "Lass ihn" by Gunvor.
  • In 2003, UK's "Cry Baby" by Jemini.
  • In the 2004 semi-final, Switzerland's entry "Celebrate", sung by Piero and the Music Stars.

[edit] Political and regional voting patterns

Some viewers claim that politics and international relations dictate a lot of the voting.

[edit] International relations

Some people (including BBC commentator Terry Wogan) have theorised that the UK scored nul points in 2003 because UK had entered the war on Iraq. However, it should be remembered that as viewers only vote for one song, this issue would only have affected the voting if a substantial number of people had had the British entry as their favourite but decided not to vote for it because of the war. Given Jemini's performance on the night - deemed by many to be mediocre - the possibility of this seems unlikely. Traditionally Malta receives high points from the United Kingdom, however this was not the case in 2006.

[edit] Regional block voting

However, there is academic evidence that regional block voting exists. It has become more prolific since the mid-90s, significantly influencing contest results in the 21st Century, and was especially important in determining the winner in 2003 (Turkey), where just three points separated Turkey, Belgium and Russia at the top of the leaderboard.

The main voting blocks that have been identified are:

Several of the modern contests have been won by above countries, but crucially with support from many more participating countries than just their neighbours and allies. Turkey, the 2003 winner, is increasingly favoured by countries such as Belgium, France, Germany and Netherlands, where there are significant Turkish communities. Similarly, Spain has repeatedly given twelve points to Romania in recent years, because Romanian people are the first European community in Spain, and Serbia and Montenegro has received consistently high marks from Austria, although these countries have also often scored highly from across Europe.

Greece and Cyprus almost every year award each other 12 points (except for years one of them hasn't qualified for the final).

Other blocks seem to exist, such as the Romania and Moldova, United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, and Belgium and Netherlands, but these exchanges are too small to have much effect on the overall result.

The counter-arguments to such patterns are often that these countries share cultures and broadcasters, and frequently select singers to represent them that have previously had success in neighbouring countries, so voting for each other is not unreasonable. Another case for dismissing "political voting" has been the shared languages, although with many countries opting to sing in English, this argument has been weakened.

[edit] Bias against large countries

The emergence of regional voting blocks seems to have reduced significantly the scores for bigger countries. In 2005, the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany made up the bottom four of the results table; in 2006, each ended among the bottom 10. Though some claim that this shows that large countries are unpopular in Europe, or is a protest against the fact that they cannot be eliminated (other than voluntarily) from the final, bad scores for large countries may have to do with the underlying country-by-country voting system.

By awarding the same number of votes to each country, no matter how small, a region split up into many separate but culturally close nations controls many more votes than a single large country with the same population. Yugoslav candidates scored far fewer votes before the break-up of their country. Conversely, if England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would each participate individually, the UK would quadruple its voting power. If each of Germany's Länder competed, Germans would increase their votes sixteenfold and become the most powerful voting block of all.

It has been suggested by the EBU that a change to voting may come into place in the next few years. Whether this is to protect the "big 4" nations that provide most of the financing and viewers for the event, or trying to even out the population/neighbour issue is not clear. However, "sources" at the EBU imply that changes may be necessary to keep the bankrolling countries happier. It is suggested by many that voting should not consist of 100% televoting, but should be balanced with the input from an expert jury. A further suggestion to reduce the problem is to withhold the nationality of the performers until after the voting. Assuming most voters are not motivated enough to research which song is representing which country, this would encourage people to vote for the best performance rather than for the country who they believe should win. However, this would require all participants to sing in the same language (probably English), as otherwise it would be remarkably easy to determine which country the song came from. For example, a song sung in Norwegian would almost certainly be identified as the song from Norway.

Since the semi-finals were introduced, countries doing their first performance in the finals tended to get lower rankings. This may be because the audience have had an opportunity to get used to a song. The four big countries obviously haven't had this chance.

With around 40 countries participating, apart from winning, ending up in the next year's finals has become a goal on its own. This eliminates the need to vote for the big four, as they are in anyway.

Nevertheless, the bias against larger countries is unlikely to change without some weighting of country votes by population - or by abolishing country-by-country voting altogether.

[edit] Failed voting systems

One of the most notorious examples of a failed voting system was the one used for the 1969 contest. This system had in fact been used since 1957 with the exception of the years 1962-1966. Ten jurors in each country assigned gave a single vote to their favourite song. Four countries tied for first place (UK, Netherlands, France, and Spain), and there was no tie-break procedure. In typical EBU style, the same voting system was used the following year in Amsterdam and again in at Brighton 1974, the Contest which brought ABBA to the attention of the world.

Between 1962 and 1966 a voting system closer to the current system was used. Actually there were several variations: in 1962 each country awarded its top three 1, 2 and 3 points. In 1963 the top five was awarded 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 points. At last from 1964 to 1966 each country awarded its top three 1, 3 and 5 points. With the latter system there was an additional rule that each country could choose not to give points to three countries, but instead just to two, giving one a 3 and the other one a 6, or even award a full 9 points to just one country. In reality only Belgium used this rule in 1965, giving the United Kingdom 6, and Italy 3 points.

The 1971, 1972 and 1973 contests saw the jurors 'in vision' for the first time. Each country was represented by two jurors - one older than 25 and one younger, with at least ten years' difference in their ages. Each juror gave a minimum of 1 point and a maximum of 5 points for each song. This system had the disadvantage that not every jury gave out the same number of votes. Luxembourg for example in 1971 merely gave 1's and 2's to nearly all the songs, possibly to boost their own chances. In addition there were rumours about delegations buying votes from the jury members, something that was more easy than ever since these jurors physically attended the show. This, combined with the attention seeking antics of the juror from Switzerland in 1973, are largely blamed for the prompt dismissal of this voting system and the brief return to the 'ten jurors with one vote' system in 1974, before the present voting system was introduced at the Stockholm contest of 1975. Jury spokespeople were next seen on screen in 1994 by satellite link up to the venue.

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