Eurovision Voting Explained. Again.
I've posted this as a comment over on Martyn's blog, but I have to post it here, too.
I'm waging a lone campaign to try to get people to understand what goes on with the Eurovision Song Contest voting since they introduced the telephone voting, but I'm a voice in the wilderness. Maybe I'm even wrong, but that's never happened before!
Your media and your Wogans call it tactical voting or political voting, or neighbours voting for neighbours, but that's not what goes on.
Neighbours don't vote for neighbours. I think history teaches us that Bosnians actually hate Serbs, and vice versa. We hate the French and the French hate us. Ditto the Irish. The Danes hate the Swedes. The Germans hate the Turks and everybody hates the English.
What actually happens is that expat communities or border-crossers, or people with particular allegiances vote for their "home" country from the country they happen to be in at the time. You can't vote for yourself if you stay at home, and the English, on the whole, stay at home. There could be any number of reasons why expat Brits might not choose to vote in the same way. A disdain for Eurovision; language difficulties; or maybe our national characteristic of "playing by the rules" just means that Brits won't vote for themselves, even if they're in a position to do so. And expat Scots would only vote for a British entry if the singer was a Scot. You know I'm right.
Bosnians who still live in Greater Serbia (or whatever it's called now) vote for the Bosnian entry. The Irish in the UK vote for the Irish entry. Danes and Swedes cross the bridge and vote away from home. The huge Turkish population in Germany votes for Turkey.
Please don't make me explain this all over again next year. That is all.
I'm waging a lone campaign to try to get people to understand what goes on with the Eurovision Song Contest voting since they introduced the telephone voting, but I'm a voice in the wilderness. Maybe I'm even wrong, but that's never happened before!
Your media and your Wogans call it tactical voting or political voting, or neighbours voting for neighbours, but that's not what goes on.
Neighbours don't vote for neighbours. I think history teaches us that Bosnians actually hate Serbs, and vice versa. We hate the French and the French hate us. Ditto the Irish. The Danes hate the Swedes. The Germans hate the Turks and everybody hates the English.
What actually happens is that expat communities or border-crossers, or people with particular allegiances vote for their "home" country from the country they happen to be in at the time. You can't vote for yourself if you stay at home, and the English, on the whole, stay at home. There could be any number of reasons why expat Brits might not choose to vote in the same way. A disdain for Eurovision; language difficulties; or maybe our national characteristic of "playing by the rules" just means that Brits won't vote for themselves, even if they're in a position to do so. And expat Scots would only vote for a British entry if the singer was a Scot. You know I'm right.
Bosnians who still live in Greater Serbia (or whatever it's called now) vote for the Bosnian entry. The Irish in the UK vote for the Irish entry. Danes and Swedes cross the bridge and vote away from home. The huge Turkish population in Germany votes for Turkey.
Please don't make me explain this all over again next year. That is all.
posted by Anonymous at
Saturday, May 20, 2006
3 Comments:
I prefer your theory to the "political voting" one that gets trotted out every year. I think that the way countries vote is more to do with culture than with politics.
By
Hel, at 10:11 am
Hmmm. This makes a lot of sense. But is it true Finland won?
By
Roger Morris, at 10:29 am
I wanted Lithuania to win. I thought it was very clever of them to sing a song that had the line, 'Vote vote vote for us!' Or something. I think they were convinced they were going to win too. Their song was even called 'We are the winners'. You've got to admire their confidence.
By
Roger Morris, at 2:20 pm
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