Voting irregularities in ESC jury vote – countries fight back

According to the EBU that organizes the ESC, these are Azerbaijan, San Marino, Poland, Georgia, Romania and Montenegro. Three out of these six countries have reached the ESC final. In the second semi-final on 12 May, four of the six juries placed the other five countries in their top five, one jury placed the others in the top six and one in the top seven. What is particularly shocking about this is that most of these countries were not selected in the top eight from the other 15 juries with voting rights. As a result, the EBU did not count the votes of these six juries in the second semi-final and replaced them with calculated points. In the final, these six nations were dealt with in exactly the same way.

How the EBU uncovers irregularities

These irregularities were noticed by both ESC’s voting partners and an independent observatory. “An irregularity in jury voting behavior on such a scale is unprecedented,” the EBU said. For voting to be considered irregular, two of the following five points must apply: Are there deviations from other juries’ common tastes, voting patterns, rule violations in voting, recurring patterns across multiple countries, or clear beneficiaries? In line with ESC rules, the decision to remove the six jury votes was upheld by the Chairman of the ESC Reference Group and the Deputy Director General of the EBU.

Six accused are fighting the country with a befitting reply

All six broadcasters from the countries involved have now publicly reacted to the cancellation of their jury results. No manipulation is accepted – rather they question the behavior of the EBU. TVR’s response from Romania is clear: “Now following the image damage caused to the television station, the people responsible for TVR are considering Romania’s withdrawal from future editions of ESC – and about taking legal action against the organizers of ESC.” are considering.” In addition, people in Romania are angry that they did not switch to the country to award points. ESC Executive Supervisor Martin Sterdahl read out scores from the halls of Turin for three of the six juries. According to Romania, the line specified in the live show had no technical faults.

Three of the six countries would have been kicked out anyway

Akil Lauro did not reach the final for San Marino. Even the original jury vote would have ended in the semifinals.

San Marino’s SMRTV describes the EBU’s decision as “authoritarian” and is concerned that it was not agreed with the first six countries. A Baku statement said Azerbaijan’s Aktimai Television made a similar statement: “We hope the situation will be resolved soon, provided justice is served.” Azerbaijan is the first country in the history of the ESC to reach the final with zero points by semi-televote, thanks to the result of the jury. In fact, even without the EBU’s intervention in the voting, the exact same ten countries would have made it to the ESC finals – three of the six accused countries, namely Montenegro, San Marino and Georgia, would have been eliminated in the semi-finals.