Eurovision song contest voting: is it fair?

Another Eurovision song contest in Dusseldorf ended with a surprising victory of Azerbaijan. After the semi-finals not many comments in various mass media sources favored this country, and I guess talks about “unfair”, “rigged” voting system will emerge again.

Many contestants performed well and deserved to be a winner or next to number one. And Azerbaijan was also good, but why its “lullaby” song unexpectedly got so many votes? Was Hungary or Finland or Serbia worse? Lena from Germany, the last year winner, yet again performed extremely well, showing her exclusive vocals, charm and charisma. Georgia rocked the party as well. What about Moldova with an extremely original performance of “Zdob si Zdub”? After their last time participation at the Eurovision contest in Kiev with their famous “Bunica bate doba” there were some articles in the West stating that the voting system basically stole the victory from the Moldovan band. This year they not only managed to sing quite a dynamic and rhythmic rock song, but also originally combined it again with national colors. Compared to other participants, who all sing in English and you’d never guess which country in the end the singer represents, the Moldovans brilliantly brought to Eurovision a reminder that this should be a competition between different nations and cultures.

But who cares about bringing in more fair rules, if the Eurovision contest seems to have become a mere business machine and the current voting system suits well its business model?

If last year Lena was indisputably the best, this year I have doubts that Azerbaijan should have been the winner, though Ell/Nikki performed quite well. And the problems of the voting system are not only about so called effect of “neighbors voting”, which in itself is very subjective and very distorting, but also about the online voting and the local professional jury in all voting countries.

There was a story that in one of the countries the competition about who’d represent the nation for the Eurovision had a strange situation when an obvious outsider with quite a low-taste performance won the viewers voting. The next day it leaked into the news that either the rich fan or the rich parent has hired and paid a team of online voters, who did the job turning money into winning SMSs and phone calls. In the end the situation was saved by the jury, whose voting was more professional and apparently more in the interest of the nation.

But who said that the final contest of Eurovision is immune to such “promoted online voting”?! In the modern world of communication wonders, a nation rich in petrol or gas, or some rich fans or parents can easily “parachute an airborne mission” to several countries to prepare the grounds for a massive online support. A few thousand of SIM cards cost today nothing. Multiply them by 20 calls allowed by rules. Add to this the potential of Web SMSs. And, ta-da, presto, voilà!

Is that impossible? Not at all. The same can be said also about the final jury in all the countries. Who ever saw them? How they are selected? Can the rich sponsors know in advance the names of those jury so that they could approach them with offers hard to refuse, especially in some East European and CIS countries, where poverty and corruption are still ruling? In the end the expenses would be obviously much less than the potential multimillion incomes when the country wins.

I am not pointing at or accusing anyone by my thinking aloud. All I want to say is that this rigging is quite real and doable. Hence, there is an issue here, which will persist and fuel suspicions unless some changes are not made. And I could suggest the following.

First, if nations are not allowed to vote for their own, why not enforcing a rule to not allow online voting for neighbors (with professional jury being able to vote for neighbors)? With more than 40 countries in the competition, there is enough countries to vote for, even for those, who have more neighbors than others. Besides, it will force viewers to focus on real talents and not simply on voting for a neighbor.

Secondly, one phone number (one SIM card) should equal one vote and not 20. This will reduce the impact of “fanatic” and/or “sponsored” voting.

Thirdly, there should be more transparency about professional jury, they should be elected at random on the day of the final competition, and voting live and loudly in person - let the people know their heroes.

Last but not least, professional jury should put their marks like in figure skating: one mark for technique and vocal capacity, and another mark for originality and artistic skills.

With such a new approach, Eurovision will only become more intriguing and will turn into a real competition like in sports, where the one who is the strongest on that particular day wins, and not someone who in advance worked well behind the scenes.