TURIN, ITALY – The EBU issued a statement during the jury voting procedure at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 to explain why the national juries from six nations in the second semi-final were withdrawn from the contest. In both the second semi-final and the grand final, they were replaced with an aggregated result based on nations with comparable voting trends.

VRT, which alternately organises Belgium’s Eurovision participation with RTBF, stated that a close source verified the arrangement. According to the deal, Romania, Montenegro, San Marino, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Poland would trade points with each other. The business that was auditing the results saw the unusual voting patterns and decided to interfere.

Surprisingly, the hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest did not speak to the representatives of Georgia, Montenegro, or Romania during the live broadcast last night. Instead, Executive Supervisor Martin Österdahl cast the jury ballots for the respective nations. TVR from Romania said in their statement that they had no information Eda Marcus would not be on air in the Grand Final.

The following nations had their national juries excluded from Eurovision 2022:

Azerbaijan – Georgia – Montenegro – Poland – Romania – San Marino

THE EBU STATEMENT

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.

ROMANIA REACTS

After broadcasters from Georgia and Azerbaijan officially reacted to the annulment of their judges’ votes in the Eurovision 2022 contest, Romania’s state broadcaster issued an official statement on the situation, which it described as “an unpleasant surprise”.

“We were surprised to find that the result of the Romanian jury’s vote was not taken into account when calculating the final classification. The organizers awarded a different set of points to the final participants on behalf of our country’s jury” In a statement, TVR reveals that the maximum score would be given to Moldova, also claiming that it was not warned of the situation: “In the message sent, Romania was not explicitly mentioned in the list, nor did it receive any official communication about the suspicion of ‘irregular patterns The person in charge of communication between TVR and EBU/UER for the jury’s vote is the one who noticed the discrepancy between the scores sent the day before”.

In addition, TVR claims that Eda Marcus was not allowed to appear on the broadcast:
“Our spokeswoman was not allowed to appear on the official broadcast to present the results” noting that Eda attended all the voting rehearsals. Finally, TVR, which guarantees that “the rules were changed during the game, without the participants being notified in advance”, contacted the EBU/UER to ask for “clear reasons why they substituted the jury’s score” being that “depending on the response sent to us, TVR reserves the right to take measures to correct the situation created”.

GEORGIA REACTS

GPB, Georgia’s state broadcaster, is investigating why their jury votes were not acknowledged during yesterday night’s Grand Final. GPB has revealed that Ukraine received 12 points in their jury vote in the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. In the early hours of today morning, the Georgian broadcaster issued the following statement:

“At the Eurovision Song Contest, the national jury from Georgia gave the highest rating – the first place to Ukraine, which means 12 points. This is evidenced by a notarized document sent to the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest. The Public Broadcaster is clarifying the details with the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest.”

MONTENEGRO REACTS

Montenegro’s broadcaster, RTCG, said that their jury was conducted as usual, and their findings were officially approved by the EBU, therefore the news that their votes were not tallied was quite surprising. Azerbaijan’s TV and Romania’s TVR both reported that their spokesman was not permitted by the EBU to declare their points, not due to connectivity problems, as Executive Supervisor Martin Österdahl claimed.

AZERBAIJAN REACTS

The Azerbaijani broadcaster has sent a letter of protest to the European Broadcasting Union regarding the removal of its jury from the Grand Final and Semi-Final Two of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. 12Xal has published a statement from İctimai:

“The events that took place during the final stage of the Eurovision-2022 song contest and the decisions made after that were met with regret by the Azerbaijan Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. We declare that we sent the names of the countries voted by the Azerbaijani jury to the organizers of the competition. According to the list, 12 points were given to Ukraine. In response, the organizers of the competition urged the representatives of the Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company to announce other results at the end of the final show, without giving any reasons. We have categorically rejected this request. An official letter of inquiry was immediately sent to the organizers, and we said that we would announce the voices of our jury, and not the results of the live broadcast, and make this issue public. Only then were we informed that there was some “strangeness” in the voices of six countries, including Azerbaijan, during Thursday’s semi-finals. It should be noted that we have not been informed about this “strangeness” from Thursday to the end of the final on Saturday, and no “evidence” has been provided so far. Despite the fact that the representative of the Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company was ready to announce the results of the jury voting in Azerbaijan during the broadcast, the organizers of the competition were not closed to Baku but announced their results on our behalf. The failure to carry out this process in Baku is due to technical problems. However, we did not have any technical problems announcing the votes live. We emphasize once again that we have not given the organizers any right to announce the votes on behalf of Public Television. We are waiting for an official response to this issue and plan to take the next steps depending on it. We hope that the situation will be resolved soon, provided that justice is done.|

As of today, neither TVP in Poland nor SMRTV in San Marino has issued remarks on the removal of their jurors.

an oikotimes original text

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