[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by Ammi

…this is a really interesting article and something I hadn’t considered before …(…Ben probably is much more up in the maths of voting as he’s knowledgable on odds etc…)…the ‘mathematics’ of the public vote in how many votes are allocated to each voter and whether that allocation is divided in multiple performances or condensed to one performance is really quite interesting and I’ve bolded the last sentence to show the influences of a voting landscape…


Pollster Kevin Cunningham explains how the nature of Eurovision voting influenced the outcome

When it comes to the public votes cast at the Eurovision, we need to take elements like 'diffuse alternatives' and 'motivated reasoning' into consideration. This is according to Dr Kevin Cunningham, a lecturer in politics at TU Dublin and the founder of the Ireland Thinks polling company.

First, there's 'diffuse alternatives', Cunningham explains. "If Israel were on the ballot, let's say, and that was the principal thing people were voting on, there's only one Israeli option and 24 other non-Israel options. So that means that the relative concentration of support within the Israeli option tends to be a little bit higher."

So what vote share would we expect Israel to have gotten to get to second place? "If we look at the result from previous years' Eurovision finals, the second place got around 13 or 14% in the last two years, so we might expect that it only takes 13 or 14% for someone to actually get to 2nd place. That means that quite a large proportion might actually have been voting for others."

We also have to take 'motivated reasoning' into consideration. "We see this in politics when it comes to turnout in elections and turnout in referendums", explains Cunningham. "When we see turnout in referendums become very low we notice that the results become quite skewed. If turnout in a referendum gets lower than 35% the people who are more motivated, more interested, tend to influence the outcome a little bit more".

In the case of Eurovision, it's even more extreme. "Because we know that even of those that viewed the Eurovision, only around 6 or 7%, from previous data, actually vote", says Cunningham, "so it means that it's at the extreme end. But then what accentuates this even more is the number of times that you can vote. You can vote up to 20 times so that influences it to a massive degree in reality.

"You could imagine there are certain people who vote once or twice for a given song, and then there might be some people who vote 20 times for the exact same song or country. By definition, taken together with the low turnout and also the scale in which people might be voting, it necessitates, basically, an extreme preference for whoever tends to win, or otherwise. If you imagine a room of 100 people and 99 of them vote once, and one of them votes 20 times, based on our sums, you could expect that one to actually win."


https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0...-public-votes/

The voting doesn't really concern me, I just love the contest with all its dramas, oddities and variety of songs and performers.

I don't take it as a serious contest, I just like getting some friends in and enjoy the night watching it.
It maybe doesn't need to be as long with endless chatter and nonsense.
The voting can be both irritating and hilarious.

For me last night was a far better night on the BBC than the usual run of tedious quiz programmes.
However your post there on the voting is interesting reading.
I think there's a lot of concrete truth in that article you have shared on here.

I mean the voting is even more ridiculous especially when you can start voting even before ANY act has even performed.
I just treat it as a fun night myself.
So long may it continue and for goodness sake it is just ONCE every year.

Plus on TIBB too, it was great being with other members on here as well as those at home with me watching.
Taking in all the other TIBB members comments too.
All watching the Eurovision contest.
Watching acts from other Countries whatever they're performing just trying to do their best.

I loved it.
I say again long may it continue too.