After major concerns of voter
fraud in last year’s contest, a full breakdown of both jury and telephone
results was released immediately after the contest ended broadcast. How did politics affect this year’s voting?
Were there any irregularities in any jury’s scores? Who benefited the most from
the televote and the jury vote? What does this mean for Eurovision’s voting
system going into 2015? Here are some key findings from this year’s results.
The real hate is between Armenia and Azerbaijan:
All members of the Armenian
jury ranked Azerbaijan dead last. Azerbaijan
was also last in the Armenian televoting. The Azeri reciprocated in return, ranking
Armenia last both in the jury and in the televoting. These results indicate that there are still
tensions between the two countries stemming from the long-time disputed status
of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ukraine and Russia actually decided to focus on
the music tonight:
One would think after the
annexation of Crimea, Ukraine and Russia would purposely rank each other last
amongst their juries. However, the
exchanges of points indicate that political tensions did not translate into
Eurovision rivalry. Russia awarded
Ukraine 7 points (ranked sixth among the jury, forth in televoting), and
Ukraine awarded Russia 4 points (ranked tenth among the jury, third in
televoting).
Coordinated, manipulated voting apparent in
Azeri and Belarussian juries:
The jurors nearly voted the
same way for all 25 acts. When one looks
at all five juror rankings for each country, there is little variability
between each juror ranking. The Azeri/Belarussian
rankings then clearly suggest that there was deliberate coordination. There is little to no probability that these
similar rankings happened by random chance.
Here is a breakdown of the Azeri/Belarussian jury scores with averages
and standard deviations. Note: the numbers in the columns indicate place
ranking.
Considering both Azerbaijan
and Belarus are countries with authoritarian governments, could there be
possible coercion from their governments to vote a certain way?
Major rivalry exists between Scandinavian and
ex-Soviet blocs:
After the crumbling of the
Balkan voting bloc in 2013, the two dominant voting blocs, the Scandinavian and
ex-Soviet blocs, attempt to destroy each other in this year’s contest – using
both their national juries and televoters. Very few points were exchanged
between the two voting blocs. As you can see below, both Scandinavian juries
and televoters were anything but generous with their points. Note: the numbers
in each column except “Points awarded” indicate place ranking.
The ex-Soviet juries and
televoters also did not show much mercy to the Scandinavian acts. One exception
is Ukraine’s 12 points to Sweden’s Sanna Nielsen.
When the juries were first
introduced back in 2008, the intent was to prevent bloc voting. However, the
breakdown of jury results for the Scandinavian and ex-Soviet voting blocs show
otherwise. Ironically, national juries
may be leveraging their own voting powers to revive bloc voting as a weapon against
other countries rather aid to a neighboring country.
Eastern European juries are more conservative
than their own people:
While Austria decisively won
the contest, several countries’ juries tried hard to derail Conchita’s
victory. Those countries were Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Montenegro, and Poland.
However, televoters disagreed with their juries. Austria was ranked second in the Armenian
televoting, third in the Azeri televoting, forth in the Belarussian and Polish
televoting, and fifth in the Montenegrin televoting. If the EBU scrapped the jury in this year’s
contest, Austria would have won with 315 points based on the televoting only.
Austria, Poland, and Switzerland benefited most
from televoting:
From 1997 to 2007, only
televoting decided the winner of the contest. If this were the case, Austria’s margin of
victory would have been greater. Poland
would have finished fifth instead of fourteenth, and Switzerland would have
finished seventh instead of thirteenth. The
biggest loser would have been Norway, dropping from eighth (88 points) to
seventeenth (39 points). Here is a full breakdown of televoting-only results below:
1. Austria - 315
2. The Netherlands - 220
3. Sweden - 194
4. Armenia - 193
5. Poland - 150
6. Russia - 132
7. Switzerland - 115
8. Ukraine - 112
9. Romania - 101
10. Hungary - 98
11. Belarus - 56
12. Finland - 45
13. Spain - 45
14. Iceland - 43
15. Greece - 41
16. Denmark - 41
17. Norway - 39
18. Montenegro - 33
19. Italy - 32
20. Germany - 31
21. Azerbaijan - 26
22. United Kingdom - 24
23. San Marino - 23
24. Malta - 21
25. Slovenia - 15
26. France – 1
Austria’s margin of victory evaporated under a
jury-only scoring system:
If ESC 2014 was under the pre-1997
jury-only scoring system, Austria would have won with 224 points. Sweden and the Netherlands would have finished
with 201 and 200 points respectively. Overall,
it would have been a much closer contest.
Malta, Finland, and Azerbaijan would have benefitted the most, finishing
sixth, seventh, and eighth respectively.
Here is a full breakdown below:
1. Austria - 224
2. Sweden - 201
3. The Netherlands - 200
4. Hungary - 138
5. Armenia - 125
6. Malta - 119
7. Finland - 114
8. Azerbaijan - 108
9. Norway - 102
10. Denmark - 85
11. Spain - 83
12. Ukraine - 78
13. Russia - 70
14. Germany - 61
15. Iceland - 59
16. Romania - 51
17. Belarus - 50
18. Greece - 49
19. Montenegro - 48
20. United Kingdom - 47
21. Italy - 37
22. Switzerland - 27
23. Poland - 23
24. Slovenia - 21
25. San Marino - 21
26. France - 5
Conclusions:
As a long-time fan of the
contest, the contest has made some dynamic shifts over the past ten years. In 2004, fans saw the emergence of the Balkan
and ex-Soviet countries. In 2008, bloc voting was so rampant – juries were
introduced. In 2012, Eurovision held its
contest at its most eastern location, Baku.
Now, Eurovision is heading back to the West with two dominant voting
blocs and a disintegrated and disengaged Balkan bloc. It begs the question; does the EBU need to
scrap juries and bring back a televoting-only scoring system? How can the EBU hold countries accountable
for engaging in ethical behavior? The
contest and its format are constantly changing. To be continued, Eurovision
fans.