Voting Structure
Each country had a televote except Turkey, Romania and Hungary, where the top ten most voted for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points, with a back-up jury in case of mistakes. A jury was used if there were exceptional reasons not to use a televote.
Spain originally gave its 12 points to Israel and 10 to Norway. After the broadcast it was announced that Spanish broadcaster wrongly tallied the votes and Germany should have got the top mark - 12 points - instead of being snubbed, as it happened. The mistake was corrected and so Germany was placed 7th over Norway. Israel and Norway both received 2 points less than originally and Croatia, Malta, Portugal, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia and Turkey all received one point less than indicated during the broadcast.
With just one country left to vote, it was anyone's guess as to who was going to prevail, with Israel and Malta locked in battle with the scoreboard showing them with the same points total (although, due to the error above, Malta actually one point ahead), and the United Kingdom apparently nine points behind. When Macedonia came to award the decisive points, Israel was the first of the three contenders to be mentioned, receiving eight points. That was enough to knock the UK out of contention for victory, but left plenty of room for Israel to be overtaken by their principal rival. Next, the ten points went to the UK, nudging them into what looked like being an extremely fleeting spell in second place, since most of the audience assumed the twelve points were destined for Malta. Instead, there were gasps as Macedonia sent the final points of the evening to fellow Balkan nation Croatia, handing Israel their first win in the contest since "Hallelujah" in 1979.
It is also noteworthy that Israel only received points from 21 of the 24 other countries, whereas the United Kingdom received at least one point from every country, but finished second. Furthermore, whilst Israel received three sets of 12 points compared to Malta and the United Kingdom who both received four sets of 12 points, Israel received a seven sets of 10 points to help seal the win.
Read more about this topic: Eurovision Song Contest 1998
Famous quotes containing the words voting and/or structure:
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. With Shakespeare it is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)