Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest
The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is determined by a positional voting system. The upcoming version of the system, set to be implemented in, sees each participating country awards two sets of 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points, based on their ten favourite songs from other countries. One set of picks comes from their professional jury, and the other from televoting in their country.
Overview
Small, demographically-balanced juries assembled by each participating broadcaster and made up of ordinary people had been used to rank the entries and award the points from each country. After the widespread use of telephone voting in, the ranking resorts to juries only in the event of a televoting malfunctions. In, for example, Eircom's telephone polling system malfunctioned. Irish broadcaster RTÉ did not receive the polling results from them in time, and used the backup jury instead. Between and 2003, the first years of televoting, lines were opened to the public for only five minutes after the performance and recap of the final song. Between and, the lines were opened for ten minutes. From to, they were opened for fifteen minutes. As of, the voting is open for approximately 15 to 25 minutes after the end of the last performance in the semi-finals, and analogously for approximately 25 and 40 minutes after the end of the last performance in the final; the "Rest of the World" vote additionally runs for 24 hours before each show in order to accommodate for time zone differences. Viewers may cast up to 20 votes per show, for each phone number or payment method; this figure will be reduced to 10 from onwards.In,, and 2025, viewers were allowed to vote during the performances. Since the 2004 contest, the presenters will start the televoting window with an invitation: "Europe, start voting now!" was used until, "Europe and Australia, start voting now!" between and, and "Europe, Australia, and the rest of the world, start voting now!" since. At the end of the voting period, the presenters will tell viewers to stop with a final countdown, along with the phrase "Europe, Australia, and the rest of the world, stop voting now!". The United Kingdom is not able to vote via SMS or the smartphone app, due to legislation implemented after the 2007 British premium-rate phone-in scandal. San Marino has never been able to use televoting because it does not have a telephone network independent of Italy's.
In the, only the winning song was announced at the conclusion of the event, with the results of the remaining participants unknown. Since, a spokesperson, appointed by each participating broadcaster, was contacted by telephone to reveal the points or votes from its country. This method continued to be used until, except for a few occasions in which the international juries were located in the host country and voted directly on screen. Since, the spokespersons have appeared on screen through a live satellite link.
To announce the points in the final, the contest's presenters invite each spokesperson to read the country's points in French or English. The presenters originally repeated the points in both languages, however, since 2004, the points have only been translated due to time constraints. To offset increased voting time required by a larger number of participating countries, since 2006, each spokesperson only read out the top three scores of their respective country's vote: 8, 10 and 12 points. Points from one to seven were added automatically to the scoreboard, while each spokesperson was introduced.
The scoreboard displays the number of points each country has received, and, since, a progress bar indicating the number of countries which have voted. In, as part of a new voting system that was being implemented, it was decided that only the 12-point mark would be read aloud, meaning that points one through eight, as well as ten, were added automatically to the scoreboard. The televoting points were combined and the presenters announced them in order, starting from the country with the lowest score and ending with the country with the highest score, from the televoting. Beginning with the, the televoting points are announced by the presenters based on the juries' rankings, in reverse order.
Voting systems
The most-used voting system, other than the current one, was last used for the. This system was used from 1957 to 1961 and from 1967 to 1969. Ten jurors in each country, each cast one vote for their favourite song. In 1969, this resulted in a four-way tie for first place, between the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Spain, with no tie-breaking procedure. A second round of voting in the event of a tie was introduced to this system in 1970.From 1962 to 1966, a voting system similar to the current one was used. In 1962, each country awarded its top three 1, 2 and 3 points. In 1963 the top five were awarded 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 points. From 1964 to 1966, each country usually awarded its top three 1, 3, and 5 points. With the latter system, a country could choose to give points to two countries, instead of three, giving 3 to one and 6 to the other. In 1965, Belgium awarded the United Kingdom 6 points and Italy 3. Although it was possible to give one country 9 points, this never occurred.
The,, and contests saw the jurors "in vision" for the first time. Each country was represented by two jurors: one older than 25 and one younger, with at least 10 years' difference in their ages. Each juror gave a minimum of 1 point and a maximum of 5 points to each song. In the previous system of ten jurors was used. In 1975, the current system was introduced. Spokespeople were next seen on screen in, with a satellite link to the venue.
The had its first semi-final, with a slight change in voting: countries which did not qualify from the semi-final would be allowed to cast points in the final. This resulted in 's "Wild Dances" by Ruslana finishing first, with a record 280 points. If the voting had been conducted as it had been from 1956 to 2003, when only finalist countries could vote, 's "Lane moje" by Željko Joksimović would have won the contest with 190 points: a 15-point lead over "Wild Dances", who would have scored 175 points. To date, non-qualifying countries are still allowed to vote in the final. In 2006, were able to vote in the semi-final and the final, despite their non-participation due to a scandal in the selection process, which resulted in progressing to the final instead of.
With the introduction of two semi-finals in 2008, a new method of selecting finalists was created. The top nine songs, ranked by televote, qualified, along with one song selected by the back-up juries. This method, in most cases, meant that the tenth song in the televoting failed to qualify. This attracted some criticism, especially from, who had placed 10th in the televote in both years. In 2010, the 2009 final system was used, with a combination of televoting and jury points from each country used to select the semi-finalists. Each participating country had a national jury, consisting of five music industry professionals, appointed by national broadcasters. From 2026, each national jury consists of seven members, with two of them required to be between the ages of 18 and 25.
Highest scores
As the number of participating countries and the voting systems have varied throughout the contest's history, it may be more relevant to compare what percentage of all points awarded in the competition each song received, computed from the published scoreboards.The Russian entry at the 2015 contest, "A Million Voices" by Polina Gagarina, became the first song to get over 300 points without winning the contest, and the only one during the era when each country delivered only one set of points. With a new voting system introduced in 2016, Australia became the first country to get over 500 points without winning the contest. In 2017, Bulgaria became the first non-winning country to score above 600 points, as well as Portugal becoming the first country to get over 750 pointswinning the contest with the song "Amar pelos dois", by Salvador Sobral.
Since the introduction of the 2016 voting system, the Swedish entry at the 2022 contest, "Hold Me Closer" by Cornelia Jakobs, holds the record for receiving the highest percentage of maximum points from the juries, receiving 222 out of 240 points in the second semi-final. "Stefania" by Kalush Orchestra, winner of that year's contest for Ukraine, holds the record for receiving the highest percentage of maximum points from the televoting, receiving 439 out of 468 points in the final.
Top five winners by percentage of all points
This table shows top five winning songs, by the percentage of all points cast.| Year | Country | Artist | Song | Points | % of all points cast | % of maximum possible points |
| Gigliola Cinquetti | "Non ho l'età" | 49 | 34.03% | 65.33% | ||
| Corry Brokken | "Net als toen" | 31 | 31.00% | 34.44% | ||
| Sandie Shaw | "Puppet on a String" | 47 | 27.65% | 29.38% | ||
| Isabelle Aubret | "Un premier amour" | 26 | 27.08% | 57.78% | ||
| André Claveau | "Dors, mon amour" | 27 | 27.00% | 30.00% |
Top five winners by percentage of the maximum possible score
This table shows top five winning songs, by the percentage of the maximum possible score, a song can achieve.| Contest | Country | Artist | Song | Points | % of all points cast | % of maximum possible points |
| Anne-Marie David | "Tu te reconnaîtras" | 129 | 8.66% | 80.63% | ||
| Brotherhood of Man | "Save Your Kisses for Me" | 164 | 15.71% | 80.39% | ||
| Nicole | "Ein bißchen Frieden" | 161 | 15.42% | 78.92% | ||
| Katrina and the Waves | "Love Shine a Light" | 227 | 15.66% | 78.82% | ||
| Alexander Rybak | "Fairytale" | 387 | 15.89% | 78.66% |