Just before the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, we asked the readers of Eurovision Ireland which country they thought should have won our beloved contest more than they have. The results are in – but hold on to your hats, it’s about to get more exciting than the televote results in Basel!

Here are the results of that initial poll:

1st – UNITED KINGDOM – 8.33% (26)

2nd – ITALY – 8.01% (25)

3rd – FINLAND – 7.05% (22)

4th – FRANCE – 6.73%  (21)

5th – PORTUGAL – 6.41% (20)

6th – CYPRUS – 6.09% (19)

7th – ICELAND – 5.45%  (17)

8th – SPAIN – 4.81% (15)

8th – CROATIA – 4.81% (15)

10th – SWEDEN – 3.53% (11)

11th – GREECE – 3.21% (10)

11th – BELGIUM – 3.21% (10)

13th – MALTA – 2.88% (9)

13th – GERMANY – 2.88% (9)

13th – ESTONIA – 2.88% (9)

16th – NORWAY – 2.56% (8)

17th – POLAND – 2.24% (7)

17th – NETHERLANDS – 2.24% (7)

17th – AUSTRALIA – 2.24% (7)

20th – ALBANIA – 1.92% (6)

21st – UKRAINE – 1.60% (5)

21st – SWITZERLAND – 1.60% (5)

21st – ISRAEL – 1.60% (5)

24th – DENMARK – 1.28% (4)

25th – LITHUANIA – 0.96% (3)

25th – AZERBAIJAN – 0.96% (3)

27th – SLOVENIA – 0.64% (2)

27th – SAN MARINO – 0.64% (2)

27th – LATVIA – 0.64% (2)

27th – IRELAND – 0.64% (2)

27th – ARMENIA – 0.64% (2)

32nd – SERBIA – 0.32% (1)

32nd – MONTENEGRO – 0.32% (1)

32nd – GEORGIA – 0.32% (1)

32nd – AUSTRIA – 0.32% (1)

37th – CZECHIA – 0.00% (0)

37th – LUXEMBOURG – 0.00% (0)

TOTAL VOTES CAST: 312

BUT!

While looking through these results, we noticed that some Eurovision fans forgot the contest’s Golden Rule – you cannot vote for your own country! In fact, nearly 20% of all votes cast were just that, people voting for their own countries! This posed two very interesting questions: Firstly, what would the results look like if people hadn’t voted for their own country? And secondly, which countries were most guilty of trying to push themselves up the scoreboard? The results surprised even the team here at Eurovision Ireland!

Below are the results again, but with votes cast for peoples’ own countries removed. All countries in red had at least one vote nullified because it came from an IP address within the country it was voting for. How has this shaken things up?

1st – ITALY – 9.69% (25) (no change, up 1 place)

2nd – PORTUGAL – 7.36% (19) (-1 vote, but up 3 places)

3rd – CYPRUS – 7.36% (19) (no change, up 2 places)

3rd FINLAND – 7.36% (19) (-3 votes, but no change)

5th – ICELAND – 6.59% (17) (no change, up 2 places)

5th – FRANCE – 6.59% (17) (-4 votes, down 1 place)

7th – CROATIA – 5.43% (14) (-1 vote, up 1 place)

8th – SPAIN – 5.04% (13) (-2 votes, no change in place)

9th – ESTONIA – 3.49% (9) (no change, up 4 places)

9th – MALTA – 3.49% (9) (no change, up 4 places)

11th – GERMANY – 3.10% (8) (-1 vote, up 2 places)

11th – BELGIUM – 3.10% (8) (-2 votes, no change in place)

11th – GREECE – 3.10% (8) (-2 votes, no change in place)

14th – NORWAY – 2.71% (7) (-1 vote, up 2 places)

15th – AUSTRALIA – 2.33% (6) (-1 vote, up 2 places)

15th – NETHERLANDS – 2.33% (6) (-1 vote, up 2 places)

15th – UNITED KINGDOM – 2.33% (6) (-20 votes, down 15 places)

18th – UKRAINE – 1.94% (5) (no change, up 3 places)

18th – SWITZERLAND – 1.94% (5) (no change, up 3 places)

18th – ISRAEL – 1.94% (5) (no change, up 3 places)

21st – ALBANIA – 1.94% (5) (-1 vote, down 1 place)

22nd – SWEDEN – 1.55% (4) (-7 votes, down 12 places)

22nd – POLAND – 1.55% (4) (-3 votes, down 5 places)

24th – AZERBAIJAN – 1.16% (3) (no change, up 1 place)

25th – SAN MARINO – 0.78% (2) (no change, up 2 places)

25th – SLOVENIA – 0.78% (2) (no change, up 2 places)

25th – LITHUANIA – 0.78% (2) (-1 vote, no change)

28th – ARMENIA – 0.78% (2) (no change, down 1 place)

28th – LATVIA – 0.78% (2) (no change, down 1 place)

28th – DENMARK – 0.78% (2) (-2 votes, down 4 places)

31st – AUSTRIA – 0.39% (1) (no change, up 1 place)

31st – GEORGIA – 0.39% (1) (no change, up 1 place)

31st – MONTENEGRO – 0.39% (1) (no change, up 1 place)

31st – SERBIA – 0.39% (1) (no change, up 1 place)

31st – IRELAND – 0.39% (1) (-1 vote, down 4 places)

37th – CZECHIA – 0.00% (0) (no change, no change in place)

37th – LUXEMBOURG – 0.00% (0) (no change, no change in place)

TOTAL VOTES CAST: 258 (-54 VOTES!)

Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Montenegro, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine remembered the rules and no one in these countries attempted to vote for themselves – but everyone else did! This includes most members of the Big 5 (only Italy didn’t try it on!) and also 13 former winners of the contest! Naughty! Czechia and Luxembourg also didn’t vote for themselves, but sadly neither did anyone else! Perhaps with Luxembourg’s 5 wins at Eurovision, fans felt this was already enough!

According to these stats, the countries most guilty of voting for themselves were:

1. UNITED KINGDOM (20)
2. SWEDEN (7)
3. FRANCE (4)
4. FINLAND (3)
5. POLAND (3)
6. BELGIUM (2)
7. DENMARK (2)
8. GREECE (2)
9. SPAIN (2)

IPs from the United Kingdom voted for the UK an astounding 20 times – more than double the amount of the next highest, which was 7-time winners Sweden. France came third on this ignominious list, though again significantly lower than the country above them. Poland and Finland round out the Top 5 – interestingly a former winner and a country that came 2nd! Albania, Australia, Croatia, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway and Portugal all voted themselves up just once – but once is all it takes!

For those of you that think we’ve published this list to disgrace certain countries or start arguments, we haven’t – we did plan just to publish the results of the poll, but finding this information we decided it was too interesting not to share!

A final thought when it comes to Eurovision and voting discrepancies – there will always be those who try to manipulate the results of any competition because they want to see our favourites do well. It’s human nature. But as contradictory as it sounds, rules are what make competitions exciting. And so it stops being fun if we don’t respect them.

Author: James Scanlan
Banner Image Source: eurovision.tv