Sweden: Anna Bergendahl the Melodifestivalen winner if Eurovision voting system was in place?
A very interesting article was published on the official website of Melodifestivalen. The question for the columnist is whether Anna Bergendahl would have been the winner of the Swedish national final if they had applied the Eurovision voting system.
To answer this question we need to keep in mind the differences in the way in which Melodifestivalen and Eurovision vote. At Melodifestivalen, public voting is done via a mobile app and not overall, but by age (plus those who vote by phone). Also at Melodifestivalen every voter has five votes that he can share as he wants, while in Eurovision the practice has proved that the overwhelming majority of the public only votes for his favorite song.
But let’s see now, according to the SVT article, why it is likely that the outcome of the Melodifestivalen final would have been different if the voting system in Eurovision had been applied.
Initially, as we saw in Anna Bergendahl’s “Kingdom Come”, was first in the three age groups of older people (over 45) and in voting by telephone. On the contrary, it was 11th (!) in the two younger age groups (under 15 years), while in the other two middle age groups (16 to 29 and 30 to 44) it was 6th and 3rd respectively.
Failure to participate in in-app voting would make the number of young people voting much smaller, as these ages usually do not vote by telephone, where there is a charge. This would automatically raise the balance in favor of older people, as their turnout would be significantly higher. Of course nothing is given and only estimates can be made, as it is possible that some of the young people who voted through the application, if this was not possible, would vote by phone.
Another important element that reinforces the theory that Anna Bergendahl would be the winner of the Melodifestivalen if the voting system were the same as Eurovision is that what matters in the second is to be first in voter preference rather than just having a general acceptance.
“Kingdom Come” received almost all of its votes from the three major age groups and those who voted by phone. If we take into account the above, then it is very likely that there was no in-app voting, but only by telephone and based on the extensive support received by Anna Bergendahl from the people who are most involved in phone voting. the winner of the public vote.
All of the above is not our analysis, but an article published on SVT’s official website for Melodifestivalen. What we would like to add is how striking the differences in voting between the different ages are and how they look in the new way of voting at Melodifestivalen, which has been used for the last two years.
A song that audiences under the age of 15 rank 11th in 12 competing songs, is 1st in all ages over 44!
However, the Mamas were the winners of the Melodifestivalen 2020, with voting system that was known to everyone from the beginning.
Let’s enjoy Kingdom Come once again and wish Anna a try again, with an equally beautiful song:
Source: SVT
