Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest
The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is selected by a positional voting system. The most recent system was implemented in the 2016 contest, and sees each participating country award two sets of 12, 10, 8–1 points to their 10 favourite songs: one set from their professional jury and the other from tele-voting.
Overview
Small, demographically-balanced juries made up of ordinary people had been used to rank the entries, but after the widespread use of telephone voting in 1998 the contest organizers resorted to juries only in the event of a televoting malfunctions. In 2003, Eircom's telephone polling system malfunctioned. Irish broadcaster RTÉ did not receive the polling results from Eircom in time, and substituted votes by a panel of judges. Between 1997 and 2003, lines were opened to the public for only five minutes after the performance and recap of the final song. Between 2004 and 2006 the lines were opened for 10 minutes, and from 2007 to 2009 they were opened for 15 minutes. In 2010 viewers were allowed to vote during the performances, but this was rescinded for the 2012 contest. Since the 2006 contest, the presenters use a special phrase to start the televoting process known as "Europe, start voting now!". This also applies to Australia since 2015. When everything is all done, "Europe, stop voting now!" is used to signal the end of the process.The BBC contacted regional juries by telephone to choose the 1956 winners, and the European Broadcasting Union later began contacting international juries by telephone. This method continued to be used until 1993. The following year saw the first satellite linkup to juries.
To announce the votes, the contest's presenters connect by satellite to each country in turn and inviting a spokesperson to read the country's votes in French or English. The presenters originally repeated the votes in both languages, but since 2004 the votes have been translated due to time constraints. To offset increased voting time required by a larger number of participating countries, since 2006 only countries' eight-, 10-, and 12-point scores are read aloud; one- to seven-point votes are added automatically to the scoreboard while each country's spokesperson is introduced. The scoreboard displays the number of points each country has received and, since 2008, a progress bar indicating the number of countries which have voted. Since 2016, only the 12-point score is read aloud due to the new voting system, meaning that the nine scoring countries were added automatically to the scoreboard. In addition, the televoting points are combined together and the presenters announce them in order, starting from the country with the lowest score and ending with the country with the highest score from the televoting. For the 2019 contest the system is the same as before but this time, the presenters will announce the televoting points based on the juries' rankings.
Voting systems
The most-used voting system was last used for the 1969 contest. This system was used from 1957 to 1961 and from 1967 to 1969. Ten jurors in each country each cast one vote for their favourite song. In 1969 this resulted in a four-way tie for first place, with no tie-breaking procedure. A second round of voting in the event of a tie was introduced to this system the following year.From 1962 to 1966, a voting system similar to the current one was used. In 1962, each country awarded its top three one, two and three points; in 1963 the top five were awarded one, two, three, four and five points, and from 1964 to 1966, each country usually awarded its top three one, three and five points. With the latter system, a country could choose to give points to two countries instead of three ; in 1965, Belgium awarded the United Kingdom six points and Italy three. Although it was possible to give one country nine points, this never occurred.
The 1971, 1972, and 1973 contests saw the jurors "in vision" for the first time. Each country was represented by two jurors: one older than 25 and one younger, with at least ten years' difference in their ages. Each juror gave a minimum of one point and a maximum of five points to each song. In 1974 the previous system of ten jurors was used, and the following year the current system was introduced. Spokespeople were next seen on screen in 1994 with a satellite link to the venue.
The 2004 contest had its first semifinal, with a slight change in voting: countries which did not qualify from the semifinal would be allowed to cast votes in the final. This resulted in Ukraine's Ruslana finishing first, with a record 280 points. If the voting had been conducted as it had been from 1956 to 2003, Serbia and Montenegro's Željko Joksimović would have won the contest with 190 points: a 15-point lead over Ruslana, who would have scored 175 points. To date, non-qualifying countries are still allowed to vote in the final. In 2006, Serbia and Montenegro were able to vote in the semifinal and the final despite their non-participation due to a scandal in the selection process.
With the introduction of two semifinals in 2008, a new method of selecting finalists was created. The top nine songs qualified, along with one song selected by the back-up juries. This method, in most cases, meant that the tenth song in the televoting failed to qualify; this attracted some criticism, especially from Macedonia. In 2010 the 2009 final system was used, with a combination of televoting and jury votes from each country also used to select the semi-finalists. Each participating country had a national jury, consisting of five music-industry professionals appointed by national broadcasters.
Highest scores
"A Million Voices" sung by Russian artist Polina Gagarina, became the first song to get over 300 points without winning the contest ; with a new voting system introduced in 2016, Australia became the first country to get over 500 points without winning the contest. In 2017, Bulgaria became the first non-winning country to score above 600 points, as well as Portugal becoming the first country to get over 750 points - winning the contest as a result of this with the song "Amar pelos dois" by Salvador Sobral. As the number of voting countries and the voting systems have varied, it may be more relevant to compare what percentage of all points awarded in the competition that each song received (computed from the published scoreboards . The table below show winning songs by the percentage of all votes.Top 5 Winners by percentage of all votes
This table shows top 5 winning songs by the percentage from the all votes cast.| Contest | Country | Artist | Song | Points | Percentage of all points cast | Percentage of maximum possible points |
| 1964 | Gigliola Cinquetti | "Non ho l'età" | 49 | 34.03% | 65.33% | |
| 1957 | Corry Brokken | "Net als toen" | 31 | 31.00% | 34.44% | |
| 1967 | Sandie Shaw | "Puppet on a String" | 47 | 27.65% | 29.38% | |
| 1962 | Isabelle Aubret | "Un premier amour" | 26 | 27.08% | 57.78% | |
| 1958 | André Claveau | "Dors, mon amour" | 27 | 27.00% | 30.00% |
Top 5 Winners by percentage of the maximum possible score
This table shows top 5 winning songs by the percentage from the maximum possible score a song can achieve.| Contest | Country | Artist | Song | Points | Percentage of all points cast | Percentage of maximum possible points |
| 1973 | Anne-Marie David | "Tu te reconnaîtras" | 129 | 14.05% | 80.63% | |
| 1976 | Brotherhood of Man | "Save Your Kisses for Me" | 164 | 15.71% | 80.39% | |
| 1982 | Nicole | "Ein Bißchen Frieden" | 161 | 15.42% | 78.92% | |
| 1997 | Katrina and the Waves | "Love Shine a Light" | 227 | 15.66% | 78.82% | |
| 2009 | Alexander Rybak | "Fairytale" | 387 | 15.89% | 78.66% |
Top 10 participants by number of votes
This table shows top 10 participating songs by the number of votes cast.| Contest | Country | Artist | Song | Points | Percentage of all points cast | Percentage of maximum possible points |
| 2017 | Salvador Sobral | "Amar pelos dois" | 758 | 15.56% | 77.03% | |
| 2017 | Kristian Kostov | "Beautiful Mess" | 615 | 12.62% | 62.50% | |
| 2016 | Jamala | "1944" | 534 | 10.96% | 54.27% | |
| 2018 | Netta Barzilai | "Toy" | 529 | 10.61% | 52.48% | |
| 2016 | Dami Im | "Sound of Silence" | 511 | 10.48% | 51.93% | |
| 2019 | Duncan Laurence | "Arcade" | 498 | 10.60% | 51.25% | |
| 2016 | Sergey Lazarev | "You Are the Only One" | 491 | 10.32% | 49.89% | |
| 2019 | Mahmood | "Soldi" | 472 | 10.17% | 49.17% | |
| 2018 | Eleni Foureira | "Fuego" | 436 | 8.95% | 43.25% | |
| 2009 | Alexander Rybak | "Fairytale" | 387 | 15.89% | 78.66% |
Under the 2013–15 voting system Portugal would have received 17.12% of points in the 2017 competition.
Top 10 participants by number of jury points
Tie-breakers
A tie-break procedure was implemented after the 1969 contest, in which France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom tied for first place. With no tie-breaking system in place at the time, it was determined that all four countries would be awarded the title; in protest, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Portugal did not participate the following year.The current tie-break procedure was implemented in the 2016 contest. In the procedure, sometimes known as a countback, if two countries tie, the song receiving more points from the televote is the winner. If the songs received the same number of televote points, the song that received at least one televote point from the greatest number of countries is the winner. If there is still a tie, a second tie-breaker counts the number of countries who assigned twelve televote points to each entry in the tie. Tie-breaks continue with ten points, eight points, and so on until the tie is resolved. If the tie cannot be resolved after the number of countries which assigned one point to the song is equal, the song performed earlier in the running order is declared the winner, unless the host country performed earlier. The tie-break procedure originally applied only to first place ties, but since 2008 has been applied to all places.
In 1991, the tie-break procedure was implemented when Sweden and France both had 146 points at the end of the voting. At the time, there was no televoting system, and the tie-break rule was slightly different; the first tie-break rule at the time concerned the number of 12 points each country had received. Both Sweden and France had received the maximum twelve points four times; when the number of ten-point scores was counted Sweden, represented by Carola and "Fångad av en stormvind", claimed its third victory since it received five ten-point scores against France's two. The French song "Le Dernier qui a parlé...", performed by Amina, finished second with the smallest-ever losing margin.
Scoring no points
As each participating country casts a series of preference votes, under the current scoring system it is rare that a song fails to receive any votes at all; such a result means that the song failed to make the top ten most popular songs in any country.The first zero points in Eurovision were scored in 1962, under a new voting system. When a country finishes with a score of zero, it is often referred to in English-language media as nul points or nil points, albeit incorrectly. Grammatical French for "no points" is pas de points or zéro point, but none of these phrases are used in the contest; before 2016's voting overhaul, no-point scores were not announced by the presenters. Following the change in the voting system, a country receiving no points from the public voting is announced as receiving "zero points".
Before 1975
Entries which received no points before the introduction of the scoring system introduced in 1975 are:| Contest | Country | Artist | Song |
| 1962 | Fud Leclerc | "Ton nom" | |
| 1962 | Victor Balaguer | "Llámame" | |
| 1962 | Eleonore Schwarz | "Nur in der Wiener Luft" | |
| 1962 | De Spelbrekers | "Katinka" | |
| 1963 | Annie Palmen | "Een speeldoos" | |
| 1963 | Anita Thallaug | "Solhverv" | |
| 1963 | Laila Halme | "Muistojeni laulu" | |
| 1963 | Monica Zetterlund | "En gång i Stockholm" | |
| 1964 | Nora Nova | "Man gewöhnt sich so schnell an das Schöne" | |
| 1964 | António Calvário | "Oração" | |
| 1964 | Sabahudin Kurt | "Život je sklopio krug" | |
| 1964 | Anita Traversi | "I miei pensieri" | |
| 1965 | Conchita Bautista | "¡Qué bueno, qué bueno!" | |
| 1965 | Ulla Wiesner | "Paradies, wo bist du?" | |
| 1965 | Lize Marke | "Als het weer lente is" | |
| 1965 | Viktor Klimenko | "Aurinko laskee länteen" | |
| 1966 | Tereza Kesovija | "Bien plus fort" | |
| 1966 | Domenico Modugno | "Dio, come ti amo" | |
| 1967 | Géraldine | "Quel cœur vas-tu briser?" | |
| 1970 | David Alexandre Winter | "Je suis tombé du ciel" |
1975 to 2015
Finals
Entries which received no points since the introduction of this system in 1975 up until the scoring reformation in 2016 are:| Contest | Country | Artist | Song |
| 1978 | Jahn Teigen | "Mil etter mil" | |
| 1981 | Finn Kalvik | "Aldri i livet" | |
| 1982 | Kojo | "Nuku pommiin" | |
| 1983 | Remedios Amaya | "¿Quién maneja mi barca?" | |
| 1983 | Çetin Alp and The Short Waves | "Opera" | |
| 1987 | Seyyal Taner and Grup Locomotif | "Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne" | |
| 1988 | Wilfried | "Lisa Mona Lisa" | |
| 1989 | Daníel Ágúst | "Það sem enginn sér" | |
| 1991 | Thomas Forstner | "Venedig im Regen" | |
| 1994 | Ovidijus Vyšniauskas | "Lopšinė mylimai" | |
| 1997 | Tor Endresen | "San Francisco" | |
| 1997 | Célia Lawson | "Antes do adeus" | |
| 1998 | Gunvor | "Lass ihn" | |
| 2003 | UK | Jemini | "Cry Baby" |
| 2015 | The Makemakes | "I Am Yours" | |
| 2015 | Ann Sophie | "Black Smoke" |
The first time a host nation ever finished with nul points was in the 2015 final, when Austria's "I Am Yours" by The Makemakes scored zero. In 2003, following the UK's first zero score, an online poll was held to determine public opinion about each zero-point entry's worthiness of the score. Spain's "¿Quién maneja mi barca?" won the poll as the song that least deserved a zero, and Austria's "Lisa Mona Lisa" was the song most deserving of a zero.
In 2012, although it scored in the combined voting, France's "Echo " by Anggun would have received no points if televoting alone had been used. In that year's first semi-final, although Belgium's "Would You?" by Iris received two points in the televoting-only hypothetical results from the Albanian jury ; Belgium would have received no official points from televoting alone. In his book, Nul Points, comic writer Tim Moore interviews several of these performers about how their Eurovision score affected their careers.
Since the creation of a qualifying round in 2004 and an expansion to two semifinals in 2008, more than thirty countries vote each night – even countries which have been eliminated or have already qualified. No points are rarer; it would require a song to place less than tenth in every country in jury voting and televote.
Semifinals
Entries which received no points during the semifinals are:| Contest | Country | Artist | Song |
| 2004 | Piero Esteriore & The MusicStars | "Celebrate" | |
| 2009 | Gypsy.cz | "Aven Romale" |
2016 onwards: One section of voting
With the new televoting system being introduced in the 2016 contest, scoring no points in either the jury voting or televoting phase is possible. An overall "nul points" is also possible, but much less likely, and has not yet happened. The closest to overall "nul points" came San Marino in 2017, receiving a single point from the German televote.In 2016, the Czech Republic's entry "I Stand" received no points from the televote. They did get 41 points from juries.
In 2017, Spain's entry "Do It for Your Lover" received no points from the juries. They did get five points from the televote. Also in 2017, Austria's entry "Running on Air" received no points from the televote but they did get 93 points from juries. In 2019, Germany's entry "Sisters" obtained no points from the televote with 24 from the juries.
In finals
Entries that received no jury points are:| Contest | Country | Artist | Song |
| 2017 | Manel Navarro | "Do It for Your Lover" | |
| 2019 | Kobi Marimi | "Home" |
Entries that received no televote points are:
| Contest | Country | Artist | Song |
| 2016 | Gabriela Gunčíková | "I Stand" | |
| 2017 | Nathan Trent | "Running on Air" | |
| 2019 | S!sters | "Sister" |
In semifinals
Entries that received no jury points in the semifinals are:| Contest | Country | Artist | Song |
| 2017 | Valentina Monetta & Jimmie Wilson | "Spirit of the Night" |
Entries that received no televote points in the semifinals are:
| Contest | Country | Artist | Song |
| 2017 | Claudia Faniello | "Breathlessly" | |
| 2018 | Ari Ólafsson | "Our Choice" | |
| 2019 | Paenda | "Limits" |
Junior Eurovision
No entry in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest has ever received nul points; between 2005 and 2015, each contestant began with 12 points to prevent such a result. However, there has not been a situation that the 12 points received in the beginning would have remained as the sole points. The closest to that was Croatia in 2014 which ended up with 13 points after receiving a single point from San Marino. On 15 October 2012, it was announced by the EBU, that for the first time in the contest's history a new "" was being introduced into the voting system. The jury consists of members aged between 10 and 15, and representing each of the participating countries. A spokesperson from the jury would then announce the points 1–8, 10 and the maximum 12 as decided upon by the jury members. In 2016 the Kids Jury was removed and instead, each country awarded 1–8, 10 and 12 points from both adult and kid's juries, also eliminating televoting from the contest. An expert panel were also present at the 2016 contest, with each of the panelists being able to award 1–8, 10 and 12 points themselves.In 2018, Portugal and Wales earnt 0 points in the jury voting. In 2019, Portugal earnt 0 points in the jury voting again.
Regional bloc voting
Although statistical analysis of the results from 2001 to 2005 suggests regional bloc voting, it is debatable how much in each case is due to ethnic diaspora voting, a sense of ethnic kinship, political alliances or a tendency for culturally-close countries to have similar musical tastes. Several countries can be categorised as voting blocs, which regularly award one another high points.It is still common for countries to award points to their neighbours regularly, even if they are not part of a voting bloc. Votes may also be based on a diaspora. Greece, Turkey, Poland, Russia and the former Yugoslav countries normally get high scores from Germany or the United Kingdom, Armenia gets votes from France and Belgium, Poland from Ireland, Romania from Spain and Italy and Albania from Switzerland, Italy and San Marino.
Former Eurovision TV director Bjørn Erichsen disagreed with the assertion that regional bloc voting significantly affects the contest's outcome, saying that Russia's first victory in 2008 was only possible with votes from thirty-eight of the participating countries.
In a recent study, a new methodology is presented which allows a complete analysis of the competition from 1957 until 2017. The voting patterns change and the previous studies restrained their analysis to a particular time window where the voting scheme is homogeneous and this approach allows the sampling comparison over arbitrary periods consistent with the unbiased assumption of voting patterns. This methodology also allows for a sliding time window to accumulate a degree of collusion over the years producing a weighted network. The previous results are supported and the changes over time provide insight into the collusive behaviours given more or less choice.