The Cali Garmo

Congratulations to Conchita Wurst for being the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest Winner! She deserved the title and both the juries and the televoting agreed on that account!

Here are the final results of yesterdays show:

   Country           Points

1 Austria 290 2 The Netherlands 238 3 Sweden 218 4 Armenia 174 5 Hungary 143 6 Ukraine 113 7 Russia 89 8 Norway 88 9 Spain 74 10 Denmark 74 11 Romania 72 12 Finland 72 13 Switzerland 64 14 Poland 62 15 Iceland 58 16 Belarus 43 17 United Kingdom 40 18 Germany 39 19 Montenegro 37 20 Greece 35 21 Azerbaijan 33 22 Italy 33 23 Malta 32 24 San Marino 14 25 Slovenia 9 26 France 2

Although, it looks as though in a weird turn of events the juries were significantly more political than the televoters. In 2009 the EBU introduced the new voting rules where juries would get 50% of the vote and the televoters would get 50% of the vote. Since then the juries have helped stabilise the political voting that seemed to be present throughout most of Europe, although this year the EBU released results from both the juries and the televote and the results paint a grim picture. It seems as though the juries have been making the contest more political in recent years than the televoters did in the past. If the juries had their way the contest would have ended like this:

   Country           Points

1 Austria 212 2 Sweden 201 3 The Netherlands 200 4 Hungary 138 5 Armenia 137 6 Malta 119 7 Azerbaijan 118 8 Finland 114 9 Norway 102 10 Denmark 85 11 Spain 83 12 Ukraine 78 13 Russia 70 14 Germany 61 15 Iceland 59 16 United Kingdom 52 17 Romania 51 18 Greece 49 19 Montenegro 48 20 Belarus 40 21 Italy 37 22 Switzerland 27 23 Poland 23 24 Slovenia 21 25 San Marino 16 26 France 5

We see that Austria would have still won the competition, but due to regional voting blocs the votes were more spread out thus diluting the votes. In this way Austria would have barely won with a strong Nordic bloc voting themselves very highly

By looking at the public we might expect a similar diluted point system, but it turns out the televote were much less political and seemed to vote with their ears. The results of the televote were:

   Country           Points

1 Austria 311 2 The Netherlands 222 3 Armenia 193 4 Sweden 190 5 Poland 162 6 Russia 132 8 Ukraine 114 7 Switzerland 114 9 Romania 103 10 Hungary 98 11 Belarus 56 12 Iceland 46 13 Denmark 43 14 Greece 43 15 Spain 41 16 Finland 39 17 Norway 39 18 Germany 33 19 Montenegro 33 20 Italy 32 21 United Kingdom 29 22 Azerbaijan 26 23 San Marino 18 24 Malta 17 25 Slovenia 15 26 France 1

As we see, the people overwhelmingly voted for Austria. The people demanded and they got what they wanted. In some countries (notably Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia,  and Belarus) the people were what carried Austria into a winning position. In every country that had televoting Austria made top 5 (Except Estonia who gave Austria 8th place) while only 19 of the 37 juries put Austria in their top 5 (and 10 didn't even give her top 10).

Now some might argue that the juries just noticed that Conchita's voice wasn't that great, but this can easily be seen to not be the case. When looking at individual jury votes it becomes very clear that Conchita was usually heavily split. Either the jury voted them top 10 or they voted her bottom 2. Yes, not bottom 10, bottom 2. This seems to imply that the juries prejudice and/or forced politics were the deciding factor for them not voting for Austria.

Luckily, at the end of the day the people of Europe overcame politics and lifted Austria to a win showing that Europe as a whole believe in the uniqueness of the individual. That Europe is accepting of who you are, no matter what you are. That what you can do means more than what you look like. That their governments do not represent them. That Europe is an open and free place with welcoming arms to all. It was a great day in Europe that wasn't seen since Dana International won back in 1998.

To view the breakdown in one page you can view them here: http://bit.ly/1nv4JHE (If you see any errors, please let me know as I had to hand copy/paste the results as EBU doesn't actually display the results in a nice format) All information was gathered from http://www.eurovision.tv/page/results

Can't wait to be in Austria next year, and until next year, Good night Europe!