Six National Juries Removed From Eurovision After Irregular Voting Patterns Detected

The 2022 Eurovision song contest saw favourites Ukraine win the competition with a whopping score of 631 points. However the voting was not as straight forward as it seems.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) who are responsible for calculating the scores, had to remove six countries votes after noticing 'irregular voting patterns'. Instead, they were then replaced by an aggregated result based on countries with similar voting patterns in both the second semi-final and the grand final.

Votes from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino were all replaced with the new aggregated score.

The EBU issued a statement addressing the votes, which said: "In the analysis of jury voting by the European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) 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.

"In order to comply with the Contest’s Voting Instructions, the EBU worked with its voting partner to calculate a substitute aggregated result for each country concerned for both the Second-Semi Final and the Grand Final (calculated based on the results of other countries with similar voting records).

"This process was acknowledged by the Independent Voting Monitor.

"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."

Here's the Grand Final scoreboard! Congratulations Ukraine! 🇺🇦 #Eurovision pic.twitter.com/bod7ZYKtpM

— Eurovision Song Contest (@Eurovision) May 14, 2022

This is not the first time the EBU has had to make changes to the song contest this year. Earlier in the year they removed Russia from competing and excluded them from the event on account of the Ukraine invasion.

Despite the changes in voting, Ukraine soared into first place during the TV vote, which saw the country amass 631 points. Rap group Kalush Orchestra represented the war-torn country with their song 'Stefania'.

Voting was close until the end of the show, with the UK's Sam Ryder topping the leaderboard before coming in second with 466 points after the public votes were counted.

Ryder told BBC News: "This is the tip of an iceberg. The UK is going to be a force next year. It's gonna be mad."

Kalush Orchestra told Eurovision TV: "We feel a big responsibility, since we received permits to leave Ukraine to be here. We have a duty to be useful to our country at this moment. We didn't have any opportunity to rehearse together for a long time, but now, we've gone into 'extra mode'.

"We're all very hard working, and we're all doing what we can to make this happen. We've enjoyed seeing people singing our song, even if they didn't know all the words. We really appreciate seeing people supporting Ukraine, and supporting us."