Eurovision Song Contest 1993 - Voting Structure

Voting Structure

Each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points for their top ten songs.

The voting required a jury to deliberate in the midst of the on-going war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Warm applause rang round the hall as a voice on a crackling phone line was heard to deliver the familiar greeting, "Hello Millstreet, Sarajevo calling".

During the announcement of the scores by the Dutch jury, Sweeney got carried away with the audience's cheers and declared Ireland 12 points when they had only been awarded 10 - which was promptly corrected.

By the final few juries it became clear that either Ireland or the United Kingdom were going to win. After the penultimate jury had voted, it looked to be a lost cause for second-placed Sonia of the UK as she was eleven points behind Niamh Kavanagh.

Due to earlier technical difficulties, the final jury to announce their results was the Maltese jury. An expectant Irish crowd waited to hear Malta award anything between one and ten points to either the UK or Ireland - the result of which would have made it arithmetically impossible for Ireland to be caught. However, the name of neither country came up (the ten points instead surprisingly being awarded to Luxembourg). This of course meant that either the UK or Ireland must have failed to pick up any points from the final jury, and if it was Sonia that received the maximum twelve points, the seemingly impossible would have happened and the UK would snatch a single-point victory at the death. Instead it was Ireland that were awarded the final points of the evening, finishing with what looked in retrospect a comfortable twenty-three point victory.