| rdfs:comment | - The Eurovision Song Contest has seen many ways of voting throughout its near 60 years. To date, there have been 8 voting procedures, some dropped, some repeated. The 12-point system that is still used today was introduced in 1975, Luxembourg was the very first recipient of the "douze points", receiving it from the Netherlands. From 1975 to 1979, the points were read at random according to the performance order of the receiving country. From 1980 onward, the points were read in ascending numerical order to increase the excitement factor for the audience as to which country would get the 12 points. Starting in 2006, the spokesperson would only announce the top 3 scores of each country after 1- through 7-point scores were shown on the screen in order to slash a big percentage off the overa
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| abstract | - The Eurovision Song Contest has seen many ways of voting throughout its near 60 years. To date, there have been 8 voting procedures, some dropped, some repeated. The 12-point system that is still used today was introduced in 1975, Luxembourg was the very first recipient of the "douze points", receiving it from the Netherlands. From 1975 to 1979, the points were read at random according to the performance order of the receiving country. From 1980 onward, the points were read in ascending numerical order to increase the excitement factor for the audience as to which country would get the 12 points. Starting in 2006, the spokesperson would only announce the top 3 scores of each country after 1- through 7-point scores were shown on the screen in order to slash a big percentage off the overall running time. The 2004 contest was the first time there would be a semi final at the Eurovision Song Contest, but this saw a slight change in the way of voting compared to previous years. For the first time, countries that did not qualify from the Semi Final would still be allowed to cast votes in the Grand Final. This resulted in Ukraine's Ruslana coming first with a record 280 points. If the voting had been the same as the voting conducted between 1956 and 2003, where only finalist countries could vote, then Serbia and Montenegro's Željko Joksimović would have won the 2004 contest with 190 points - with a 15-point lead over second place Ruslana, who would have scored 175 points. To date, non-qualifying countries are still allowed to vote in the Grand Final. With the introduction of two semi-finals in 2008, a new method of selecting finalists was created. The top nine songs ranked by televote qualified, along with one song selected by the back-up juries. This method in most cases meant that the tenth song in the televote placing failed to qualify, and attracted some criticism, especially from Macedonia, who in both years placed 10th in the televote. In 2010, the system used in the 2009 final, where the winner is selected by a combination of televoting and jury votes, was also used to select the semi-finalists.
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