In the final, the verdict of a professional jury in each country still counts for half of the points to be distributed, the organization behind the Eurovision Song Contest said. announced Tuesday. In addition, viewers who do not live in participating countries will also be able to vote from the next edition. All votes of those viewers count together for one fictional country.
Jury voting was reintroduced in 2009 to make voting more fair. In many cases, the public votes for neighboring countries, or the vote of a migrant community in another country is very decisive. The idea was that with professional juries the influence of favoritism would diminish.
But this year, the organization discovered that the juries in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino had all included each other in their top five in the second semi-final. Irregularities on that scale had never happened before, the organization said.
The organization still wants to use jury voting in the final, in order to limit the influence of favoritism, says a statement. In the semi-finals, countries are classified in such a way that this influence is as minimal as possible.
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest was won by Ukraine. However, due to the war, the festival will be held in Liverpool next year. For the Netherlands, Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper will participate.