Changes to Eurovision Voting Procedures for 2014. Photograph courtesy of EBU

The EBU has published the complete set of rules regarding participation in the contest next year in Denmark, and there are amendments to the “Voting Rules”.

The voting will still be a mixture of 50% Jury and 50% Public vote but the changes will surround the Jury.

Change 1

Each country will still have a 5 member jury but it is now stated that each broadcaster must declare who their jury members are on May 1st before any voting takes place. This will ensure that each country has adhered to the requirements of having Music Professionals of gender and age mix on their jury (which was raised as a concern by many media outlets this year)

Change 2

As before each jury member will rank the songs in order of preference – both in the Semi Finals and Final. However immediately following the Grand Final of Eurovision 2014, the complete rankings of each and every jury member will be made public on the official Eurovision website. This will therefore reveal the split votes between the Jury and the televote for each country – like it was back in 2009.

The Eurovision Reference Group voted unanimously to make these changes.

The Chairman of the Reference Group, Dr. Frank-Dieter Freiling commented “Through this increased openness, we want to assure everyone – participants, press and fans – can come to an understanding of how we obtain a valid result. With these changes, we hope to put an end to the kind of speculation we have recently seen.”

In an interview with Eurovision.tv – Jon Ola Sand (Executive Supervisor) has said of these changes “We believe in the independence of every jury member. They are professionals who are used to be evaluated. I even believe the increased transparency, and the fact that their votes are on display, will help them vote independently. However, there are always pros and cons and we will therefore scrutinise this very carefully. ”

Change 3

There will be a new platform on the EBU’s website, where jury members, fans, and tv viewers can report any irregularities in the voting from a country. This will be a centralised area for the EBU to investigate these claims.

Here is a full copy of the Rules for Eurovision 2014

What do you make of these enhancements to the Jury Voting? Will they secure a transparent vote at Eurovision?

Let us know.

Author/Website co-founder and Editor in Chief Garrett Mulhall

Source : Eurovision.tv, EBU, escXtra, Eurovision Ireland