Hello everyone, and welcome to the next article in my series called “the Great Debates” where, as it says on the tin, we take a look at some of the biggest bones of contention in the Eurovision world. Today, we’re looking at the various voting systems over the years; to see if they’ve finally got it right after years of umming and aahing, or if a return to one of a number of previous systems – or the possibility of an entirely new one – could be the way forward for the contest we all know and love.
Firstly, I’ll start with the usual disclaimer that the comments expressed are my own, unless stated otherwise. I’m no Eurovision guru (just a fan like everyone else) and my opinions are not right or wrong. All of the statistics or statements I have made are true to the best of my knowledge at the time of going to press, and if any of them prove to be incorrect, please let me know and I apologise.
Anyway, that’s the boring bit out of the way, let’s now get on with the good stuff. To provide some brief historical insight into how the various voting systems have developed over the years, the system up until 2015 was commonplace for just over 40 years – first implemented, incidentally, the year after ABBA’s victory in 1974. Before that, the system underwent a number of changes over the first 20 years (well, technically 19, but I like a nice even number, plus it made an appropriate anniversary commemoration, as it were).
In 1956 – bearing in mind, context is obviously important here as it was the first contest – each country was allowed to send two songs, only one singer was allowed on stage for each song, and no time limits were placed on songs’ length. The votes were cast in secret and have still never been released to this day. All we know is that host nation (and current champions) Switzerland, won and hosted the inaugural contest in Lugano, with Lys Assia (who would have celebrated her 100th birthday in 2024 – the year of her nation’s third title) with the song “Refrain”. Didn’t some French-Canadian lady win it once for them as well, sometime around the late-80’s? I believe so, but I don’t think anyone has heard from her since. Let me know in the comments if you can help here.
For 1957, a transparent voting system was introduced; broadcasted live after all the songs had been performed – complete with, low and behold, a scoreboard on the screen. Medals would also be given to the winners. Each nation would enter a jury consisting of 10 national citizens, and each would award a point for their favourite song. Unlike the previous year, they could not vote for their own entry, and each nation could only submit one song. Two performers were now allowed on stage, but no other backing vocals (whether live or pre-recorded).
It is believed this voting system was inspired by the UK’s Festival of British Popular Songs, which included regional voting with an in-play scoreboard. As seemingly appropriate, the UK entered for the first time (the following year would be the only other year in which they also didn’t enter). The juries were assembled in their countries and watched the contest on TV, and at the end of the show were contacted via telephone by the contest’s presenter. So, you could say, it was televoting of sorts – perhaps making you wonder why it took them a further 40 years to make it a permanent fixture for the public.
The system stayed the same until 1962, with one major change from 1959 – juries were no longer allowed to include any individual employed in the music industry. An interesting move, and a far cry from today’s juries, which generally consist of musical professionals in varying capacities. From 1962, the points would be given from the jury rather than by each individual; each jury agreed on their top 3 favourites and would award 3 points to their favourite, 2 to their second favourite, and 1 to their third.
A year later, this was increased to 20 members, with each nation rewarding their top 5 favourites with 5 points to their favourite and 1 point to their fifth. This was immediately switched back to 10 for the following contest – owing largely to a situation the previous year in which both Norway and Monaco made errors in their results; both had to re-read their scores at the end of the voting, meaning that Denmark won the contest over Switzerland, who were in the lead before the amended scores. In another slight change, juries gave 5, 3 and 1 point respectively, to their top 3 favourites.
Interestingly, between 1962 and 1965, despite the voting system being altered slightly each year (as just mentioned), four songs scored the dreaded zero. This would be explained by the lack of points available to each song, but the fact that it was the same number of songs four years in succession was purely a co-incidence.
For 1965 and 1966, another slight change was made. Each jury awarded a total of 9 points, to a maximum of three songs. However, if only two songs were among their favourites, they could give no more than 6 points to their favourite, and 3 to their second favourite. For 1967, the juries were able to distribute 10 points among their favourite songs with no other specific rules or limitations. Being a Brit, I’ll be forever grateful for the amendment when it happened, as it meant Sandie Shaw registered a landslide victory; meaning that, for one brief shining moment, my nation was top of world football and of European music (the only time this has ever happened – shame I wasn’t born until nearly 20 years later, but never mind).
Perhaps even more interestingly, the same system was used for the following 3 years, but in stark contrast to Sandie’s afore-mentioned whitewash, La La La famously (or infamously, if you’re British) beat the mighty Sir Cliff by only one point the following year, and of course his compatriot Lulu had to share the title with three other nations, with whom she finished level on points, the year after. With no tie-breaker procedure in place at the time, all four songs were declared winners.
No major changes were forthcoming for the start of the 70’s, but in 1971 – somewhat bizarrely, juries only consisted of two members – one had to be aged between 16-25 and the other between 25-55 and their combined points total would be given to their 5 favourite songs; 1 for their fifth favourite and 5 for their favourite. In 1974 – the last year before the 1-12 points system was introduced – they briefly reverted back to the ten-member jury system where 10 points would be distributed among their favourite songs.
This was, of course, the year where a certain double husband-and-wife team whom nobody has heard from since (again, let me know if I’m wrong here) gained Sweden their first of a joint-record seven victories. Curiously, the UK did not award them any points at all, along with four other juries. You can save your conspiracy theories, however (that wouldn’t be for another 50 years); Olivia Newton-John – another of the major favourites with her song “Long Live Love” was already established in her career, whereas ABBA, until this point, had not broken through. The UK jurors simply preferred other songs.
It’s effectively impossible for me to say which year pre-1975 that I believe they got it right above any other, as the systems changed more times than Albania change their entry every year. However, with juries as nonsensically small as 2 and as extraordinarily large as 20, it seems that 10 was the most appropriate amount (I’d welcome this number over the 5 that are currently included on the juries).
As for which method of points distribution was the best – again, it’s a difficult one. Giving each jury member a solitary vote puts pressure on individuals to choose an absolute favourite when they may have several or be undecided, and may not give an accurate reflection of the broad range of tastes that members may have.
This being said, with the process of voting unlikely to have been as transparent in those days as it is today (just ask Azerbaijan), the combined system could have caused collusion amongst jury members. But of course, as we’ve already established, these were the early days, and systems evolve over time, as they have with the various international football tournaments.
1975 was the first year in which nations would award 1-12 points to their top 10 favourite songs; a system that would remain in place for just over 40 years. The year it became the split system that has been use for the last 8 contests, in which the juries vote first with the televoters added in afterwards, was not introduced until 2016, but more on that later.
Televoting was allowed for the first time in 1997 – although only five nations (Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK) used it for the first year. The following year, in Birmingham, Hungary, Romania and Turkey were the only nations to still use juries, and two years later, for the first contest of the new millennium, all nations were expected to use only televoting unless circumstances made it unfeasible or impossible – in this event, Russia and debutants Latvia were given advance permission, and the Netherlands – with the Enschede firework disaster occurring only a few hours before the contest and claiming 23 lives, had to use their back-up jury. Some things, of course, do take priority.
For 2001 in Copenhagen, and then again for 2002 in Tallinn, each nation was given the choice of using 100% televoting, or the combined system used between 2009 and 2015 – most opted for the former option. Using only their jury score was permitted in an instance where, as above, they were unable to use televoting for whatever reason. In 2003, televoting became compulsory once again, with juries only permitted as a back-up – only Ireland needing to utilise this option in the event, citing technical difficulties. An exemption was granted for Russia once again, and for Bosnia/Herzegovina. Poland opted for SMS (text messaging) only.
This policy continued between 2004 and 2008 – with the only difference being that all participating nations in the contest were able to vote, including those in the semi-finals and not only the final as before. 2006 was the first year in which only the top 3 nations were announced verbally by each nation’s spokesperson, and the lower points – from 1-7 – were only shown on the screen. This, of course, became only the 12-point recipient from 2016 in line with the introduction of the double-points system we now know.
Between 2009 and 2015, each nation was required to use the single, combined system (with exceptions granted perennially for San Marino, as they were previously for Andorra and Monaco, all of whom have too small a population to facilitate a televote). So, as they do now, the juries and the televote have equal weight, but were condensed into a single set of votes from each participating nation. The results of each nation’s respective jury and public vote were announced after the Grand Final, but individually, they did not have any impact on the final result as they do now.
And so, we arrive in 2016 – in Sweden; and to my mind, not simply a co-incidence that their hosting of the contest would see such a major change to the voting; bearing in mind seasoned followers of Melodi-Festivalen (Sweden’s annual national selection, sometimes shortened to “Mel-Fest”, for those of you not in the know), were already familiar with this system. Both of the most recent major changes (referring here to 1975 which I described earlier) were introduced in years that Sweden were hosting – suggesting that those who believe that they have much more influence over the contest than most other nations are not simply flogging their sour grapes.
I have to be the honest; at first, I hated the post-2016 voting system, now firmly established. When it was announced, in February of that year, I was sceptical to say the least. I kinda felt it would be make or break for the contest’s future. My feeling, on the morning of Sunday 15th May, was that I had been proven right; it had destroyed the contest completely. Bear in mind, I’m Autistic. We don’t like change. I remember speaking to a friend who’s also on the Spectrum and had exactly the same feelings at the time, but like myself, couldn’t feel more differently now. Infact, only the other day, a rant I’d made at the time came up on my Facebook newsfeed. 8 years ago, would you believe?! All that Brexit malarkey, along with England’s humiliation by Iceland in a certain other European contest, seems like only yesterday.
Admittedly, the UK (I was quite a fan of Joe & Jake and felt they deserved better), along with my 16-year-old Euro-crush from way back when, Ira Losco for Malta, being announced so early on in the televote, did not help my judgement. The fact that Poland were in last place until right near the end, yet still until that point had a chance of winning, seemed somewhat ridiculous to me. And then there was Ukraine – sending a song of questionable validity under the EBU’s anti-political rules – emerging triumphant despite being neither the juries’, nor the public’s, favourite song.
With hindsight, I look back at how silly this seems. The following year, my feelings were completely different. With Salvador Sobral storming to a seemingly inexplicable victory – the only song to win both the jury and the televote under the current system – I was just too enamoured with the fact that the country with the lowest win-to-entries ratio in Eurovision history had finally won for the first time.
A further seven years on, and the system has changed again. Only marginally, but still crucially. Now, as we know, the juries still go first – one by one as they always have done, but the televote points are added in order of where they finished in the jury vote, from last to first, as opposed to before when they were announced in order of where the public placed them. Having done a poll in each of the (7 or 8 I think) Eurovision groups I regularly post in, it appears the 2019 onwards system is much more popular than the original incarnation of the system.
What I’m going to do now, is analyse each year individually, to see which system would have worked best, and if the system in place that year worked better or worse than the alternative would have. Again, these are only my personal opinions; you may agree or disagree in each instance.
I’ve already stated my feelings on 2016 – they may have been different even at the time if they’d begun with the system they have now. However, under the 2016 system, the situation would have been that Russia would have gone top, but would have been overtaken by Ukraine – leaving Jamala to hope that Dami Im didn’t score a minimum of 215 points in order to win.
Two reasons here why I’m glad (in hindsight, as I’ve explained) for the original voting system in its first year. Firstly, I’m sorry – this is not a popular opinion, even if it may be shared by many, but Australia winning the contest would be ridiculous. It’s been long-since established that they would not be able to host, and let’s face it, the contest’s credibility would have been seriously undermined (as I mentioned in a previous article, it’d be like England winning the African Cup of Nations). I can deal with the fact that they’re allowed to enter, even if I think it’s wrong – they have demonstrated more passion for the contest in the decade they’ve been entering, than some nations ever have – but them winning would have caused all sorts of problems.
More to the point, the way things panned out in 2016 meant that Sergey Lazarev – though a talented performer with a strong song, failed to gain the necessary number of points required to take the trophy. And although this was long before his nation’s invasion of Ukraine (albeit they’d already attacked Crimea two years’ prior), there surely isn’t a nation they’d have rather not been pipped to the title by. Sergey can hardly be blamed for his government’s behaviour, of course, but knowing the look on Mr. Putin’s face would have been similar to Mr. Lazarev’s, well, make your own mind up. Always the most likely televote winner, but needing a total of just over 400 was a tall order to say the least.
Moving on, and a year later, the major flaw in the system at the time was exposed. With Bulgaria and Portugal the top 2 finishers with both sets of votes, it meant that if Bulgaria were announced as second place with the public, the winners would be known before all the points had been announced – as Portugal had already finished higher with the juries, and therefore could not be caught; which is, of course, is exactly what happened. This leads me to conclude the seemingly obvious that the current system would have been better. Salvador would have needed 234 points to win, which of course he vastly exceeded; scoring a total of 376 points from the public (identical to Kaarija’s 2023 total, coincidentally), which was only six points lower than his jury score.
Nonetheless, they continued with the same system the following year. With only Israel’s and Cyprus’ place yet to be confirmed in the televote, we all knew that the trophy would be Netta’s if her nation was announced as televote winners as, just like a year ago, they had finished above their only remaining opponents with the juries (third and fourth respectively). This being said, a scenario whereby Austria would have needed 259 points to win would arguably have been even worse – as it was always unlikely that they were going to get it – indeed, only scoring 71 points and finishing in 13th place with the public, confirmed what most people had probably suspected.
Moving onto Tel Aviv (not Jerusalem as Netta had predicted), the grave errors by the Belarussian jury meant Sweden were incorrectly announced as jury winners on the night; leaving a situation where Sweden needed to score 254 points to win, but being a nation that generally fares far better with juries, this was always unlikely, and Jon-Henrik’s eventual total of 93 was somewhat unsurprising.
The actual jury winners, North Macedonia, did not get to celebrate their mini-victory of sorts (which would have meant a lot to a nation with no major sporting or competitive achievements in its relatively short history). Though, on the flipside, being denied an overall success right at the death – scoring only 58 points from the public – would have been particularly heart-breaking, even if not particularly surprising. In reality, North Macedonia should have been in a situation where they needed to score 252 points to defeat Duncan Laurence.
You do wonder if the EBU would ever have admitted to its error if it’d meant that the actual winner had been a different nation from the winner on the night, but that’s a debate for another day. But would it have been good if they’d kept the original post-2016 format in place for another year? Well, I’m glad they amended it eventually, but I still think it may have. Keiino from Norway, supremely popular amongst Eurofans across the continent, but having finished 17th in the jury vote – perhaps surprisingly scoring only 40 points – would have needed a seemingly implausible 458 points to win – nearly 95% of the available points from the public, and even greater than Kalush’s whitewash three years later (the afore-mentioned Belarussian jury balls-up would have meant the numbers would have been slightly different, though similar enough to draw the same conclusion).
In an unusually low-scoring year for the front-runners, where no nation scored more than 500 points in total, such a staggeringly improved televote score would have made Eden Golan’s situation look relatively unnoteworthy by comparison. So it was always unlikely, but would have perhaps made for a slightly more interesting scenario.
Skipping a year, to 2021 in Rotterdam, where Gjon’s Tears from Switzerland needed 258 points to overtake Maneskin. Realistically, being more of a jury favourite, this was always unlikely. Leading me to believe that perhaps, once again, the 2016-2018 system would have provided a more exciting scenario. Italy would have needed to score 293 points – which would have been likely (they scored 318 in the event, as we know) – they were already guaranteed a minimum of 267 as that’s what second-placed Ukraine would have just been given, but still a tense final few moments of an exciting year with no obvious winner.
Moving onto 2022 in Turin. Now, there’s a bit of bias here, I will confess. The final two nations standing (under either system) would have been Ukraine and the United Kingdom. For somewhat obvious reasons which had little to do with music, Ukraine were expected to gain an over-whelming winning margin with the public – although an eventual 439 points was perhaps even greater than some may have expected. Under the 2016-2018 system, Ukraine would have needed to gain at least 274 points – always likely to be achieved.
Nonetheless, being overtaken at the last moment would have been that little bit more heart-breaking than Sam’s eventual total of 183 being enough for an extremely respectable second place and “bringing it home” to Liverpool having risen from the embers of the previous year’s ignominy (I apologise, that was truly dreadful, infact that’s a definite nul points for me – I’ll get my coat…). But anyway, I’m digressing, so I’ll get to my point. The new system I believe worked better this time. But like I said, I’m slightly biased.
In what was always likely to be a two-horse race between Nordic neighbours, Loreen’s substantial jury victory (340 points, 163 points above second-place), was lesser in terms of points (376 for Kaarija, 133 points above second-place) but greater in terms of winning margin. Under the 2016-2018 system, Finland finishing ahead of Sweden with the public would have at least meant it went down to the wire once again), but realistically, they’d have needed 434 points to take the title – considering this would only have been five below Kalush’s phenomenal haul, and with three fewer countries voting, it was always going to be too much to ask. In this instance, I have to believe that the new system worked a lot better.
A similar scenario played out a year later in Malmo. Nemo scored an even greater total than Loreen – a point for every day of the year (although it was a leap year, so technically not) – exactly 365 points making him the second highest scoring jury winner in the contest’s history. This being said, with Slimane from France scoring 218 points, his winning margin was slightly less than Loreen’s. With three countries scoring over 300 points with the public (the first time this has ever happened), Croatia’s winning total of 337 points was eaten into by the arguably politically-motivated points awarded to Ukraine and Israel.
Is that what stopped Baby Lasagna from winning the contest overall, more so than Nemo’s over-whelming jury victory? It’s possible, though unprovable. Under the 2016-2018 system, they would have needed to score a minimum of 381 points to claim the title, which seems unlikely. In this instance, with Switzerland needing 183 points to win, it seems the current system, once again, worked out for the best.
So, finally, to answer my own question as laid out at the beginning. The “best” system is essentially too vague to determine, but which is my personal favourite? For me, it has to be the current system. There may be some further changes to it in the future – I struggle to see what exactly they will be, or how they could improve it, but the EBU always finds a way to outdo itself, for better or worse (well, usually worse).
2023 saw the addition of a Rest-of-the-World vote – which, crucially, gives the televoters a marginally bigger say than the juries – perhaps balancing out the fact that a couple of hundred people (albeit highly-qualified musical professionals) seem to decide the winner over the millions of viewers worldwide (though I doubt either Loreen or Nemo will be submitting a formal complaint about it).
Anyhow, the main reason for my opinion that the current system is the best is because it’s effectively impossible to know the winner until all the points have been announced. Is it possible that the jury winner could be in a position where everyone else’s combined points total has been revealed, and they still can’t be overtaken? I suppose it is. But even in the last two years, where Nemo’s and Loreen’s jury victories have been over-whelming to say the least, their respective triumphs on aggregate were far from a foregone conclusion – in Nemo’s case, it even seemed more likely he would fall short. Infact, post-2019, only Sam Ryder seemed like he had almost mission impossible to overtake the current leaders. Even, as explained earlier, had they been using the post-2019 system in 2017, Salvador’s 382 with the jury (a record to this day) still left him needing well over 200 points to be certain of victory.
There is one way you can be absolutely certain which nation has won the contest, before the jury winners’ public points total has been revealed; what you need to do (and I would highly NOT recommend this as it would be incredibly difficult, time-consuming, and most importantly, would suck the fun out of everything) is enter the number of available points from the public into your calculator (so that’s the number of participating countries, including the non-qualifiers from the semi-finals, times by 58).
Then, as each country’s total is announced, deduct it from that total. You will then know how many points there are remaining, which will be the number that the jury winners are set to receive. But even then, can you guarantee you haven’t gone wrong somewhere? And like I said, it’d be incredibly boring – and above all, if you do decide to do this, please don’t blab anything infront of your friends or family at the party – it’ll spoil their fun, and probably won’t make them want to invite you again next year. So, yeah, just enjoy the fun and excitement, don’t be a party-pooper, and look forward to a surprise like everyone else. It’s just much easier and better for everyone.
Perhaps another question I should address and answer is the amount of time allowed for casting your vote – as well as the limit allowed per household, or from the same mobile phone. There’s also the issue of by which means people are allowed to vote (or not, as the case may be). In the early years, phone lines were only open to the public for a mere 5 minutes. They decided this wasn’t nearly long enough so, in 2004, they increased it to a whole 10 minutes, and in 2007 increased to 15 minutes (the EBU have always been a fair and generous bunch, as we all know). For the 2010 and 2011 contests, viewers were able to vote during the performances – which was of course brought back for Malmo last year.
Now, obviously, 5 minutes seems like an unimaginably short length of time by today’s standards, even though getting out your phone, logging onto the app/website or sending a text doesn’t take that long (unless you’re in the UK – where it’s technically illegal to vote by SMS under laws that were introduced in the wake of the 2007 phone-in scandal), but as I discussed in a previous article regarding the changes made by Martin Osterdahl, they seem to have gone from one extreme to the other.
Quite honestly, I find this system to be even worse (I’m not easily pleased, I know). It gives the songs nearer the start an unfair advantage, although there is an argument for the fact that more people tune in towards the end of the show, and that songs later in the show are more easily remembered as they haven’t been followed by 25 songs since.
Finally, should there be any limits on the number of times you can vote per phone, or per household? Well, the main flaw of having no limits whatsoever is that you can vote for a song as many times as you like – thus giving a potentially unrealistic number of the amount of people who prefer one specific song. I believe the current limit is 20 votes per household/mobile (again, I may be wrong, so please let me know if I am), but if I’m right, I personally believe this is far too many.
A smaller limit (in my opinion, no more than 8 per household/mobile) would at least stop people going crazy for their favourite songs, thus giving every song a more even playing field. But then, everyone voting has the same option to vote either just once or multiple times, so would it make that much difference in any case?
Having said all this, there’s also the issue that multiple people live in the same household, and some people (mainly children) do not have their own mobile phones, and may not be able to vote at all. It’s highly unlikely that every member of the same household will have the exact same favourite song, so it’d be unfair not to allow at least a few votes per household. Or, much more simply, you may have multiple favourites and not be able to decide. In conclusion, um, well, I think it’s best just to let you make your own mind up on that one.
I think that’s everything. But what do you think? Which is your favourite voting system? Would you make any changes to the current system? Any other specific thoughts or comments? Please let me know, and if you aren’t already liking and following my page (why the hell not?!), it’d be great if you did. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next article. Ciao for now, Eurofans!
