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16th May 2022

The six Eurovision countries with “irregular voting patterns” have been revealed

Rory Cashin

The six countries in question had their jury scores removed.

During Saturday night’s 2022 Eurovision Final, it was revealed to media by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the body that produces the event, that “irregular voting patterns” had been discovered.

The EBU stated the following:

“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.”

Since then, it has been widely reported that the six countries with the irregular voting patterns were Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino.

These countries had their jury scores removed for the final, and the EBU replaced them with a was calculated results based on other countries with “similar voting records”.

These initial irregular voting patterns were discovered to have happened during the second dress rehearsal for the second semi-final, which was the round in which Ireland’s entry Brooke Scullion performed but failed to make it through to the final.

On the night, the 2022 Eurovision Final was ultimately won by Ukraine, although they may be unable to host the event for the 2023 competition.