Voting and the jury role in it

[LoveHate]

I've seen Montenegro's votes while they were still available (they deleted them 10-15 minutes after they had revealed the split votes) and I think it's because the votes of all 5 jurors were very similar, almost the same.

But I don't get why Azerbaijan jury's votes haven't been disqualified as well then. :? Look here: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/results?event=2083&voter=AZ

Thanks, I figured that was the reason. I really don't understand why it's perfectly fine to sabotage an obviously strong entry (e.g. two Lithuanians ranking Russia 26th), but similar internal results leads to disqualification (unless it's Azerbaijan).

 

[A-lister]

It's quite amusing to see people who laughed at my criticism against the jury system suddenly coming out and whine about the results because it ended up in a way that didn't fit their opinions/taste.

Well.. I will not add much more to the discussion since I've been consistent throughout these years.

Two things need to be changed till next year though:

- The draw needs to be random again! Currently it's unfair and it's apparent that the "producers" try to change the outcome in favor of some countries or/-and type of entries.

- The former 50/50 system needs to be re-introduced, the ranking system sucks big time and gives the juries more powers than the public and juries have also used it to manipulate the results. I can "get" why juries have been re-introduced, but should they have more say than the public??? Of course NOT! I would even say that we should not just go back to the previous voting system but also change it to 70/30 (in favor of the public vote).

 

[Xylidic]

I never minded the juries because whilst I always say the winner is never decided from politics, any country could win if they sent something good enough, the upper-middle entries are where political bias is more seen (such as Russia comming 7th last year possibly, I never got the impression that fans liked it), the juries were fine before in reducing the effect of those, but in general the winner was clearly the same between juries and televoting (2011 being different, but the televoting winner still won-I think San Marino's jury counts because San Marino deserves a say).

However this year we really badly saw the effects of the juries having way more power than us, last year it did happen before, such as with Poland, and to be it seemed obvious that it was because Poland's song was more..boob related and for the fans, and professionals wouldn't consider it "good music". When I saw Italy do so well I assumed that Sweden won the televote and that Italy won the juries, similar to in 2011 when the juries put Italy 1st and televoting had Azerbaijan 1st, because to me Italy's song seemed so...jury like. I was happy with Sweden winning until I found out that not only did Sweden fail to win televoting but came THIRD. Italy had what would have been the 2nd highest win of all time, beating Euphoria but still after Fairytale.

The fact that the juries can rank is almost toxic, they have the power to sink anything. Even if Italy had gotten 12s from everyone, if the juries wanted to they could stop it winning in favour of something else.

I'd like it if we had a system where the televoting winner always won, no matter what. As said, the winner is never politically chosen really, if a song is good it wins, and usually having the televoting winner win automatically would just be the same as normal, but it's really ridiculous when we're told our votes matter when they clearly don't. We couldn't have voted for Italy much more than we did, yet that still wasn't enough to give them the victory they deserved. Heck I wasn't even routing for Italy, but it just frustrates me so much that the juries had the power to down an act that was so well liked.

Yes, of course Måns won fair and square in the way that the voting works in ESC currently, but the issue is that this system is unfair. Sorry Måns and Sweden, nothing against you guys, but Europe obviously wanted Italy.

 

[Jelte]

I am not pro- jury per se, but after checking the split-results from our own country yesterday, I noticed that (in my country at least), the jury had the effect that they are meant to have. For instance; Had this been a tele-voting only contest, my nice little country would have given no less than 7 points to a specific entry, of which everybody in my Twitter-timeline was flabbergasted that they even made it to the Grand Final. I follow all kinds of people on Twitter, yet none of them understood what was so great about the song and even though I know quite a few people that watched the ESC, none of them would vote for that particular song. It would have been a clear case of diaspora-voting in other words. Because of the jury these 7 points from Holland went to italy now by the way and that is completely understandable, since I know quite a few people who loved the song. In this case the jury-system worked, I understand that in other cases it doesn't . Hey, if it had been up to televoting Europe, Trijntje would have been why-aye-aying in the Final, but the juries killed it.
As I posted somewhere else, I think televoting as the only voting-system would only be fairer if you were allowed to vote only once per person. I know, it'll never happen for various reasons and I can think of a few ways to manipulate this system as well, but at least the average viewer would probably think twice before casting their 'precious' vote: am I going to vote for the song I love most, the guy that is the cutest or the country that I love?
Aside of that; I voted 4 times for Belgium, my friend and sister both preferred Italy and they both voted once for Il Volo. So, while in my house Italy was the bigger favorite, Belgium got more votes. Not completely representative for the popularity of either song right?
In short; I do see advantages, but also flaws in both systems. For as far as I am concerned we continue with the combined jury-televoting system. That doesn't mean there could be any changes of course. For instance; change the 50/50 to 70/30 and let the jury's and the public vote at the same time (I know of a few cases where the performing countries were terribly off key during the final rehearsals and not so during the finals and the other way around) and let a draw decide the performing positions during the Big Evening. I know they mean to make the show more varied, but this year after Belgium performed we had only ballads as well, so what is the point? It's also not fair in my eyes that some producer decides who goes first, who goes last and so on. Like poor France; performing second for two times in a row.
Okay, sorry, just my two cents....

 

[ElRuso]

Latvian juror Ralfs Eilands (last place in 2013 semifinal) admitted, that he ranked Russia last because of political motives. EBU DQ and results jury, but not this

 

[Vera]

Latvian juror Ralfs Eilands (last place in 2013 semifinal) admitted, that he ranked Russia last because of political motives. EBU DQ and results jury, but not this

 

[SuperGirl]

Latvian juror Ralfs Eilands (last place in 2013 semifinal) admitted, that he ranked Russia last because of political motives. EBU DQ and results jury, but not this

But the televoting is even more political. Do you really people are only voting for the songs the like?

 

[Sim]

The best way - BUT i know it's impossible - is to let the juries show the songs on a dress rehearsal in a random order (so not in the actual order) and they see no country signs or whatever (yeah it's impossible I know but that would eliminate some thnigs like Azerbaijan-Armenia)

 

[GWTW1939]

The roll of the jury from 2009-12 had the designated roll to limit diaspora in the results

The roll of the jury from 2013-present on the other hand..... xpoke

The jury had a clear and obvious agenda and it wasn't a fair one, that's the problem! Many of the "rules" they set were clearly broken but because they got the winner they obviously wanted from the start nothing will be done about it.

 

[Alaska49]

But the televoting is even more political. Do you really people are only voting for the songs the like?

why is televoting political when mans is only third place but it is NOT political when eric saade is joint first? please. the televoting is a LOT less political and more about the songs than anyone gives it credit for. armenia wasn't even top 10 in televote this year despite being about something that unifies them as a people.

 

[thefuchs]

Looked into it now, and this is exactly what happened. Two members of the jury had Russia dead last, and the overall jury rank was 20th. So, a third place in televoting gave them 0 points. I'm sure there are similar examples across the board, but this is just one that I noticed last night. If jury ranks 11-27 were to be treated the same (as 11th position), Russia would have ended up in the top 6-8 and received at least some points. Seems much more reasonable to me.

Fix it!

One more example from 2014:
Russia's televoting placed Conchita on the 3 (!!!) place, jury placed it on the 11th, in the sum it was the 6th place. It's not that significant BUT it gave the opportunity for German media (don't know how it was in other countries) for a shitstorm towards Russia, it fitted in the overall image of Russia as "gay haters" last year. Even this year, before ESC 2015, there was a talk show where they discussed some LGBT issues and once again named that example - intolerant Russia because of the Conchita. :roll:

 

[popavapeur]

75% Televoting + 25% Juries
Juries should be in music industry (or have a link) for at least 5 years and they have to be 10 juries/country.

+ for the draw. totally random except special case : host country should always begin the competition and in the case of a 5 up tempo songs followed by 5 ballads, a rule where we have to make Up tempo then Ballad.
A 50% random draw with small changes if the EBU thinks it wouldn't be that entertaining.

EDIT : i wanted to add that people fantasize a little bit too much the juries : they're just 5 televoting people. It's not cause Italy looks more "professionnal" than Sweden the juries will put it in their top 5. Maybe they thought it was too stereotypical, too dramatic as a song. Each year i read "that's a jury song", "that's a televoting song" and 4 times on 5 we seemed to be wrong. just look at this year's Sweden and Italy... Jury and Televoting are UNpredictable, we should stop thinking about "is this song televoting/jury oriented?" because we're almost always wrong in the guessing.

 

[Kairit]

I just wish there was a way the juries could still exist, but the winner would always be decided by the public. I know why we need the juries, but I don't think we really need the juries to decide the winner. The millions of people who watch it and vote should get to decide that. The best one according to those millions of people, it's the most fairest way. Bloc/political/neighbour voting doesn't really change the winner, so the juries shouldn't mess it up either.

 

[Chorizo]

As long as we have both, juries and the televote, it's always possible for the winner not to win the jury vote (as in 2011) or the televote (as in 2015) and it's also possible that the winner doesn't come first in either vote. This has already happened numerous times in individual countries.

The 12-point system also ignores all countries that don't make it to the top 10, so a country that's no. 11 in 26 countries won't get any points, while a country that's no. 26 in all countries but one and then makes it to no. 10 in one country gets one point. There are other obvious problems with the system but I don't see the 12-point system going away, since it has been in use for so long.

Going back to a 100% televote system would cause all kinds of problems (as seen in the 2000s) and I'm sure nobody wants a 100% jury system. Currently the jury has much more influence than the televote because five people can make a complete ranking of all countries, while the individual televoter has very little influence, which gives too much power to the juries in my opinion.

Despite of all these problems, I can also see certain improvements in recent years. This year the neighbor and diaspora vote was much weaker than in the past and not even Cyprus and Greece exchanged 12 points.

I think a run-off vote might be the solution (comparable to MF). This could be used, when the juries and the televote don't agree on a winner, like in 2011 and 2015. The question is how this could be implemented during the show. The voting would have to change dramatically. I don't think such an extensive change is realistic, though. There are also numerous different ways to handle a run-off vote.

 

[ElRuso]

Despite of all these problems, I can also see certain improvements in recent years. This year the neighbor and diaspora vote was much weaker than in the past and not even Cyprus and Greece exchanged 12 points.

Cyprus didnt win televoting in Greece.

 

[Chorizo]

Cyprus didnt win televoting in Greece.

That's the point. In Cyprus, the jury did its job by ranking Greece lower. In Greece, Cyprus was more successful in the jury vote, though (no. 2 compared to no. 3). Considering that Cyprus was generally much more successful with the juries, it doesn't look that much like neighbor voting to me in this case.
In the 100% televote system, Greece would have gotten 12 points instead of 8, which would have been undeserved.

 

[GermanBango]

I think juries are needed but with the current ranking system they might have too much power indeed.
Changes are needed:
- the ranking of all songs should be abolished again (go back to the simple point system)
- the power of the juries should be reduced to 35% or something
- there should be 10 or more people in each jury
- if they keep the 27-participant-final they should add 9 and 11 points because it's kind of unfair that only 37% of the countries actually get points

 

[ElRuso]

That's the point. The juries did their job by ranking Greece lower. In Greece, Cyprus was more successful in the jury vote, though (no. 2 compared to no. 3). Considering that Cyprus was generally much more successful with the juries, it doesn't look that much like neighbor voting to me in this case.
In the 100% televote system, Greece would have gotten 12 points instead of 8, which would have been undeserved.

Neighbor voting is not a bad thing. And last year German jurors faced criticism because they didnt give Austria 12 points.

 

[Fluke]

As many have already stated, it should go back to the 1-10 ranking rather than 1-26/whatever number ranking used now. For a televote favorite, it shouldn't make a difference wether juries place it as 11th or last. And the juries shouldn't vote against entries just because they are "gimmicky" if they are still performed well.

 

[ElRuso]

And the juries shouldn't vote against entries just because they are "gimmicky" if they are still performed well.

They have already made the gimmicky entry a winner.