The problem with the jury vote

For quite a long time, a lot of eurofans complained about the unfairness of the voting system that started in the late 1990's, which in general terms gave a lot of advantage to countries with a lot of neighbors or with a big community living in other countries, giving place to what was then called friendly and diaspora vote, respectively.

The introduction of the semifinal(s) made it all the more evident that an urgent change in the voting system was urgent, as it became quite clear that a victory for a Western country (other than the Nordic) was pretty much impossible.

EBU stood up and brought back the jury after a long absence. In their first appearances, their action was limited (2008 they just picked a finalist from each semi, and 2009 they were responsible for the same plus half of the result in the final), but 2010 gave them more power. The vote from every country was decided by a 50-50 split between televote and jury vote in both semifinals and the final.

The new system proved to be effective in immediate results, with victory for a well deserving Germany. However, there are things to work in, and to me the most obvious is the one which has now outraged a lot of fans that cannot understand how the juries voted in a lot of cases. The most evident I think is the case of Israel, who received a great support from the juries in the final result, when his singing during the big night was far from good.

The problem, which many don't know, is that juries and public don't vote on the same show. While the people home cast their votes based on the performance of the big night, the juries in reality vote after the second dress rehearsal. That way, a performance which is good in one show can be shitty in another and viceversa. Didrik from Norway, for instance, had a lot of problems in the rehearsals, and sang quite well on Saturday night (although he didn't really receive much points from either the juries or the public). Harel from Israel had it the exact opposite way.

Then, wouldn't it be much better if everyone voted based on the same performances? That way the result would be more coherent, and people wouldn't start questioning the fairness of the jury vote, and questioning their impartiality. As I said, there's no doubt that EBU has started taking some steps in the correct direction, yet there's still a lot that can be done to achieve a voting system which leaves no doubt of the fairness of the result... obviously not everyone will agree with it, but at least the process won't be questioned.