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Bjørn Erichsen
EBU: Eurovision TV Director responds to allegations on voting
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James S i completely agree.
Alex - the point I'm trying to illustrate is that phone polls are not always run fairly and once conducted can we trust the individual TV companies to give honest results. For example I met several people at a Euro venue that claim to have been on the back up UK Jury. Now I thought that they were selected at random from the UK populace. Funny how all these people were gay and big ESC fans. I would hope that the BBC operates in the sprit of the contest but who knows
Regardless of whether it's diaspora or neighbourly voting, I think televoting has killed the excitement of eurovision voting. Honestly how many countries could you not guess where their 8, 10 and 12pts will go? I can think of only 1 - Malta. Will we ever see Finland giving douze to Spain, Portugal giving douze to Germany like the good old days - I fear not
@ lina baby doll
I also wonder about the nationalities of the jury members.
i just wondering if russia or ukraine or armenia or belarus or moldova or georgia or any ex-yugo countrey past to the final via jury this year what is going to happen, but because sweden past to the final nobody cares about that stupid "secret" jury voting. why EBU dont show as complete jury results of each countrey? personal i dont trust nobody in EBU after that!
Vincent Barbarino:
I didn't say western people are stingy . . . . . . . i said quite the opposite 
!!!
@ David Brooks
What has a song contest to do with democratic elections? Anyone who has a TV receiver to watch the ESC and a GSM phone to send sms can vote. Actually they may do it better than the elections because they can vote from home.
It is all totally rigged in my opinion. If Macedonia cant even elect a leader democratically without electoral irregularities what is to say that their Eurovision votes arent doctored too. Does the EBU send a scrutineer to each country to make sure televotes are calcualted properly - no of course not!
Western voters are not stingy, they just don't care about Eurovision. That's my opinion.
...so if western voters are so stingy to vote more than once for their favourite entry, then they shuld not complain that they do not get votes...and most of the time they have more money than the immigrants in their country..anyway...the voting system has some problems that need t be fixed..or germans, and the rest should become more spendable when it comes to voting :-)
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Where the hell did the idea that immigrants to the the uk are worse of financially come from. Get your facts right mate. Most immiugrants to this country get benefits the second they land on our soil, they are rehoused immediately and always get our jobs.
I am a Englishman and work my nuts off for a pittance. I cant afford to buy my own hom,e and do not qualify for a council flat. Why ? because i am not a foreigner!!!!!!!!
i want the email of EBU president
@Allan A,
Well if you read my comment carefully you will see that's actually not what I'm saying at all. I'm merely saying that Kathrin's account explains that the results are a combination of the general vote and the concentrated vote. Of course, this is true to a greater or lesser extent depending on how the relevant groups voted and who actually watched the show on the night.
It is likely that Eurovision attracts more immigrant viewers in countries rich in immigrants than their demographics would suggest because there is such a deliberate emphasis on nationality. If a country has 80 million citizens including 8 million immigrants and only 10 million actually watched the show, it is possible that the immigrants outnumbered the native population.
Your question is: why did a small minority group (Armenians) apparently vote more than a large minority group (Turks)? Perhaps the novelty of the Eurovision Song Contest has worn off with Dutch and Belgian Turks. Perhaps the Armenians who are young in this game are just starting to see the glorious possibilities of frantic self-voting. Or perhaps everybody just loved the Armenian song, regardless of background and despite its rather pitchy performance and poor starting position. Or perhaps it is a combination of the three, as previous arguments suggest.
I agree that at least the Top 3 songs should go directly to the final (and it has nothing to do with Greece finishing in the 3rd place..lol).
It's just what Allan said..if you don't win, it doesn't matter if you finished 2nd or 22nd.
@Jonny K. ;
...so if western voters are so stingy to vote more than once for their favourite entry, then they shuld not complain that they do not get votes...and most of the time they have more money than the immigrants in their country..anyway...the voting system has some problems that need t be fixed..or germans, and the rest should become more spendable when it comes to voting :-)
and something else, in west countreys the people dont care about eurovision exept from sweden and UK and other 2-3 countreys,for example in france only 3 millions waching the final and from that 3 millions the 1.5 million was immigrants, if from 60 millions of france people vote only 30 millions the west countreys do u thing that immigrants can do anything? the same happen in all west countreys, the real esc fans in all west countreys is 8% , the rest dont give a shit about esc, just see the numbers of AGB in each west countrey the night of the final or how many people vote
@lina baby doll
Yeah I agree with u. By letting just the winning song go directly 2 the Final they take the fun out 4 the rest... coz if u don`t win then it really doesn`t matter what place u come... u dont get anything anyways... and since now we`re so many countries it`ll be just fair and lots of fun 2 let at least top3 or top5 2 go directly 2 the Finals... so at least if u dont win, u still get something
i thing is unfair only the winning song to go directly to next year final, in my opinion the top 5 must to go direct to next year final. from next year when austria and slovakia join again esc the countreys in each semi is 18 ( if the top 5 from this year go direct to the final), and in the final must to be 28-30 countreys and no 25 , is just 25-30 min more
Mina Carnation:
Because maybe Russians aren't as patriotic for voting when it comes to eurovision. Everything isn't as simple as it may seem.
Also the UK vote is much less influenced by immigrants because British people vote in huge numbers anyway, meaning it is harder for immigrants to give points to their home country 
Why does anyone try to legitimise this ridiculous contest. Yes, its great fun as it has always been, but hey guys don't take it seriously. Lets just have two contests, one for Western Europe and one for Asian Europe
Tim - :
Good point!! We're all getting carried away with all of this voting rubbish when in actual fact we should just enjoy the contest for the music, drag queens, extravagant costumes and latex turkeys!! And yes, it is impossible to take seriously
Mina Carnation:
The rest of the points go to more eastern countries because western people may enjoy eastern songs more than western songs, and there are more eastern countries in the competition so it more likely that they will pick up more of the western points
So how come the UK didn't give any points to Russia? From what I read, there are like 150,000 Russians over there.
Aaaah Jonny, you're missing my main argument.
You're saying ''The reason why Western countries top points go to turkey, armenia etc, each year''...........and so on.
And I'm saying Ok, let's assume that the TOP points (12, 10..do you want 8, too? ok, 8 too!) come from minorities who vote like crazy.
What about the REST of the points?
@Keith Timmons
Using the same logic as Kathrin Schmidt did how will u then explain Armenia getting the 12point from Belgium and Netherlands this year?
ppl Belgian and Dutch 12points 2 Armenia can`t be explained just by disapora voting.
Belgium: 40.000 Turks, 15-26.000 Greeks, 10.000 Armenians and no Russian apparently according 2 wikipedia – so there r more Turks and Greeks there and in order 4 Armenia 2 get the 12points Belgian ppl must have voted 4 Armenia 2 ...
Netherlands: 358.000 Turks, 4-12.500 Greeks, 6.000 Armenians and apparently no Russian. So how could just 6.000 ppl give 12points 2 Armenia if Dutch ppl didn`t vote 4 it 2?
Again how could 6.000 Armenians beat 358.000 Turks and 4-12.500 Greeks? The only way would be if Dutch ppl voted 4 Armenia 2... otherwise it`s impossible 2 beat 358.000 Turks and 4-12.500 Greeks
So u can`t say that Dutch and Beligian ppl had nothing 2 do with the Armenian 12points, actually they had a lot 2 do
Exactly Keith!!! You've hit the nail on the head 
Mina Carnation:
You don't seem to understand what i'm saying!!
Basically this is what i'm saying -
The reason why Western countries top points go to turkey, armenia etc, each year, are because the immigrants in western countries vote many times for their home country, and outnumber the fair western voters. However whilst western people do vote alot, because immigrants vote so many times, the westerners votes are outnumbered.
So western people do vote alot, but 1 immigrant will vote many many times, so even though there aren't millions of immigrants in that country, they still outnumber the fairer voters.
Do you understand now????
there is a very simple counter argumnet to the allegation of the eastern vote: Finnland won the contest in 2006 and Greece in 2005 and bth were and definetely are not eastern countries
I didn't say none of the natives voted, I said that either they also voted for eastern countries or not enough of them voted. In a country of 80,000,000 it doesn't make sense that the votes matched NONE of the natives' preferences...when in a small country like Greece, almost all the results matched our preferences and in case you say but you voted for easten countries, I gave you the example of Spain.
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