How public voting has turned Eurovision from a song contest into a political platform

Australian singer Delta Goodrem has advanced to the Eurovision Song Contest grand final after days of online hype, fan campaigning and betting speculation surrounding her performance of Eclipse.

Each year in May, millions watch the contest, cheer for their favourite act, and complain about the voting.

But Eurovision voting today looks very different from what it did some 20 or 30 years ago. What was once a small television contest decided by expert juries has become a huge spectacle shaped by public voting, social media, diaspora communities and international tensions.

Eurovision is still about music, but the way people vote increasingly reflects the changing pattern in how Europeans view identity, solidarity and international conflicts.

From juries to digital ‘mass’ voting

When Eurovision began in 1956, viewers could not vote. Winners were decided by national juries.

This changed in the late 1990s with the introduction of televoting. Audiences could suddenly vote by phone for their favourite songs, turning Eurovision into a much more interactive event.

The introduction of televoting coincided with the groundbreaking 1998 victory of Dana International, an openly transgender singer from Israel. It gave LGBTQIA+ fan communities greater influence over the contest, helping shape it into the openly queer cultural phenomenon it is today.

Over time, voting became increasingly digital. Between 1998 and 2008, Eurovision relied almost entirely on public televoting, with juries used mainly as a back-up in case of technical problems.

Today, audiences can vote by phone, SMS, or at an official voting website or app. Since 2023, viewers from non-participating countries can also vote through the “Rest of the World” category.

In the age of social media, the audience is now younger, more global, and deeply connected. The 2025 contest attracted 166 million viewers, and voters from 146 countries.

For many fans, Eurovision season begins in January with national finals, online discussion and betting odds already shaping expectations around likely winners.

Greece’s qualification from the semifinal to the Eurovision final this year could be partly attributed to younger audiences embracing the nostalgia and aesthetic of the early 2000s. The country’s entry, Ferto (Bring It) by Akylas, blends Y2K nostalgia with a retro videogame aesthetic.

Why countries keep voting for their neighbours

As public voting expanded, countries began forming clear voting patterns.

Public voters in Nordic countries regularly exchange high scores with their neighbours, as do the Baltic states, former Yugoslav republics and former Soviet states. Cyprus and Greece have famously exchanged their “douze points” for decades.

Researchers call this “bloc voting”, where countries consistently give high points to neighbouring or culturally connected countries.

These patterns are not always simply political. Language, migration, geography and cultural familiarity influence voting behaviour.

Countries often vote for places they feel culturally close to. Diaspora communities can also strongly shape televoting results. For instance, Lithuania often enjoys high public scores from Ireland, which has a sizeable Lithuanian community.

But politics can play an important role, too. Eurovision acts as a “cultural seismograph”, exposing Europe’s political and cultural tensions.

Turkey’s 2003 victory carried broader symbolic significance during the country’s European Union accession negotiations. The result reflected wider debates about Turkey’s place in Europe.

And Ukraine’s victory in 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion, became one of the clearest examples of political solidarity in Eurovision history. Ukraine received overwhelming support across Europe, especially in televoting.

The growing divide between juries and the public

One of the biggest tensions in Eurovision right now is the widening gap between professional juries and the public.

Over time, Eurovision has repeatedly changed how it uses and combines jury and public votes across the semifinals and final. Professional juries returned in 2009, partly because organisers worried televoting alone amplified bloc- and diaspora voting.

Today, Eurovision combines jury voting and public voting, each contributing 50% of the final result. But the juries and public increasingly want different things.

In 2023, Finnish artist Käärijä won the public vote comfortably with Cha Cha Cha. However, Swedish singer Loreen dominated the jury vote, and ultimately won the contest.

Eurovision in 2024 and 2025 generated similar debates. Israel received strong televote support despite much lower jury scores amid protests surrounding the Gaza war.

Concerns were raised among fan communities and some European broadcasters regarding political mobilisation, and the growing vulnerability of televoting to online campaigns and geopolitical tensions.

The scale of these jury-public divides has become increasingly striking in recent years. Switzerland, last year’s host, received 214 jury points – but zero from the public.

In 2024, Israel received 323 televote points, but only 52 jury points. Similarly, Ukraine’s 2022 victory included an enormous 439 televote points, compared with 192 from the jury.

Eurovision audiences increasingly vote emotionally and politically, while juries remain more focused on technical musical criteria and industry standards.

Why voting still matters

Eurovision might look like light entertainment, but its voting patterns reveal broader cultural and political shifts across Europe.

During the televoting era, countries often followed regional and diaspora ties. Those patterns still exist, but younger and more digitally connected audiences are reshaping Eurovision through social media, online fan cultures and global music trends (such as Gen Z’s revival of the 2000s aesthetic).

Eurovision voting now reflects far more than musical taste, and choosing the best song. It captures people’s identity, online cultures, and political feelings in real time. That is why people continue to care so deeply about it.