Eurovision organisers respond to scandal: ‘Irregular voting patterns’

Eurovision has been rocked by scandal for the second year running, with organisers revealing they have uncovered “irregular voting patterns”.

Eurovision Song Contest organisers have released a statement about “irregular voting patterns” involving six countries.

Sunday’s grand final in Turin, Italy saw Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra take home the crown for 2022, after securing an overwhelming public vote amid Russia’s invasion of the country.

But a scandal unfolded while votes were being counted, with European Broadcasting Union (EBU) organisers announcing they noticed unusual voting patterns with the jury vote, which forced them to replace scores from six countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino.

The respective countries’ jury votes were swapped with “aggregated results”, which were calculated based on the results of other countries with similar voting records.

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Kalush Orchestra from Ukraine won Eurovision 2022. Picture: Marco Bertorello/AFP

“In the analysis of jury voting by the European Broadcasting Union’s pan-European voting partner after the Second Dress Rehearsal of the Second Semi-Final of the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, certain irregular voting patterns were identified in the results of six countries,” a statement read.

“The EBU takes any suspected attempts to manipulate the voting at the Eurovision Song Contest extremely seriously and has the right to remove such votes in accordance with the official voting instructions, irrespective of whether or not such votes are likely to influence the results and/or outcome of the voting.”

The winner of the global singing contest is chosen after the results from both the jury vote and the fan vote are calculated.

A national jury for Eurovision consists of five music professionals appointed by the nation’s broadcaster. In Australia, that would be SBS.

Jurors can’t be employees of the broadcaster, nor can they vote for their own country.

Australia’s Sheldon Riley placed 15th at the Eurovision grand final. Picture: Giorgio Perottino/Getty Images

During the grand final, Ukraine scored a respectable 192 votes from the jury – which was then combined with an incredible 439 points from the public to put them in an unbeatable lead of 631 points.

Elsewhere, Australia’s Sheldon Riley scored 123 votes from the jury, but got a brutal score of just two points from the public vote. That’s Australia’s worst result in the public vote since we entered the competition back in 2016.

That combined score of 125 saw him place 15th out of 25 – better than last year when Australia didn’t make it past the semi-finals, but still only the second time at the grand final when we haven’t placed in the top 10.