How different would the results be with the previous voting system? A LOT!
A couple of days have passed since the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2015, where Sweden’s Mans Zelmerlow was declared winner, in front of second placed Polina Gagarina from Russia, and third placed Il Volo from Italy.
We wanted to take a look at all the results, but with the previous voting system, which was in use from 2010 until 2013. In the new voting system, a song that didn’t finish in the top 10 neither in the jury votes nor the televotes could end up with points (like for example the United Kingdom’s 1 point from Ireland, when they finished 13th with the juries and 11th in televoting). Well, we wanted to see how the results would be with the previous voting system where that could not have happened, as in the old system the juries had to vote for the 10 best songs in their opinions (and not place them first to last), as well as when only the top 10 from televoting counted (not the full rankings from first to last). And the results are… interesting! Let’s start with semi final 1.
In semi final 1 when it comes to qualifiers, there’s absolutely no difference, as all 10 qualifiers would have been the same with the previous voting system as well. Russia would have still won the semi with 174 points (8 points less than the new system), Belgium, Estonia, Georgia and Romania would still follow and complete the top 5. On the bottom of the scoreboard, it is Denmark who would have finished last, while Belarus would be the 11th placed country. Check out the full scoreboard here:
In semi final 2, we would have one different qualifier in the previous voting system! But let’s start from the top – Sweden would have still won the semi final, with 212 points (5 points less than the new system), and Israel would have been second with 157, followed by Latvia with 153 points. Norway, Slovenia, Cyprus, Lithuania, Poland would have followed in 4th to 8th places, while in 9th place would be – Malta! In the previous voting system, Malta would have scored 55 points (12 points more than in the new system), and they would have qualified for the Grand Final, in front of Montenegro in 10th. Azerbaijan would have missed out as 11th in the semi with 47 points! Switzerland would have still finished last, and with only 3 points. Check out the full scoreboard here:
And now for the Grand Final – The absolute winner of this year’s Eurovision would still be Sweden, and with the previous system, Mans would have scored 1 more point – 366, Italy would have been the runner-up with 313, and Russia would have been third with 288 points. Albania who finished 17th would have finished 10th in the previous voting system, as she got very low ranks with most of the juries, while the public all over Europe seemed to have enjoyed her song. Armenia’s Genealogy who finished 16th would have been 11th with the previous system.
A big difference in the previous system would be that no country would have finished with a “null points”! The host country, Austria, would have scored a total of 6 points (3 from Latvia, 2 from Russia, and 1 from Georgia) and still finished second-last, while Germany would have scored 10 points (3 from Israel and Albania, 2 from Belgium, and 1 from the United Kingdom and Finland), and would have finished 23rd. Last place would have been reserved for Electro Velvet from the United Kingdom, whos 5 points would have come from San Marino (4) and Switzerland (1). Check out the full scoreboard of the final with the previous system voting here:
Converting all jurors top 10s into points from 1 to 12, and counting their rankings 11th to 26th/27th as 0, we can see that Sweden got a HUGE advantage over everyone else already on the night of the Jury Final. Mans scored 1525 votes – 405 points ahead of second placed Aminata from Latvia. The song that the least jurors liked was “In The Name Of Love” by Monika Kuszynska, who scored only 34 points, 9 points less than the second last Elhaida Dani’s “I’m Alive”. You can check out this scoreboard here:
Which voting system do you prefer? Should the juries just vote for their top 10 and should just the top 10 from televoting count, or should we still have the rankings of all songs from first to last? What do you think?
So since 2014 they have published the entire breakdown of an individual jury ranking and the jury and televoters top 10.
So, under 2010-2012 system do you count the top 10, award the 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 points in both disciplines and then give 12 points to the country with most points and so on or
Do you have to count every juror’s top and award all the countries from an individual juror the points and the one with the most jury points get first place from juries and so on and then combine with televotes?
Never get rid of the juries. It’s true these last years the televoting has been kinder, but there are countries commonly benefited by the televoting by neighbour/diaspora that obtain undeserved high results (Russia 2010, Turkey 2012…) and others commonly harmed that obtain undeserved low results (Portugal 2008, Sweden 2008, Spain 2012, Malta 2014).
Get back to televoting only!
There is a limitation to 20 calls per phone number anyway.
How come that the choice of a jury consisting of 5 to 6 people is set to the voice of thousands of callers?
Is set equal to 🙂
This is a public song, I don’t think that jury should involve at all
My first choice would be to get rid of the juries because they are vulnerable to group think and strategic calculated voting.
My second choice would be to go back to the 2010-2013 system because the final results would be somewhat closer to the public’s choice. Also, I like to see even lower placing songs get some points; after all some people liked them enough to take the time to vote for them.