Eurovision, the reality on the issue of votes between Italy and San Marino
After the victory of Achille Lauro to Una Voce for San Marino and its appointment as San Marino representative toEurovision 2022is unleashed on the web and elsewhere a pretext pole and without any due occurrence, according to which the longest-lived Republic in the world does not deserve to be represented by an Italian singer, although this is already several times, suffice it to see Senhit (born and raised in Bologna) o Michele Perniola (representative in 2015, from Palagiano, in the province of Taranto).
The first person resides in the participation of many fans of the last hour according to which every nation should participate with a singer from their own country, a rule that has never existed in the history of ‘Eurovision music competition and which are also found in the participants selected so far.
In this edition, for example, the representative of Greece Amanda Tenfjordwas only born in Greece, but actually grew up in Norway and acquired Norwegian nationality and Spanish representative Chanel she is Cuban, moved to Spain at the age of three, just to name a few.
But remember that Luxembourg even won with a Greek (Vicky Leandros1972) and four Frenchmen (Jean Claude Pasquale1961; France Gallo, 1965; Anna Maria David1973; Corinne Hermès1983) and Switzerland with a Canadian (some Celine Dion, in 1988). Still talking about San Marino, how can we not mention that twice he was represented by a Turk (Serhat) and one from a Maltese-German duo (Jessika Muscat and Jenifer Brening)
It may be another, which comes up every year like me and me on the web, but the motivation is that San Marino never votes for Italy, “betraying” the Italian brothers. This too denied over and over again by the reality of the facts.
Let’s analyze San Marino’s demand for data points to Italy in detail.
San Marino, votes to Italy from 2011 to 2015
From 2011 to 2015, only one set of votes was necessary for the purposes of classification, and while all the countries provided a ranking that took into account both the votes of the jury and those of the televoting, San Marino could not make use of a televoting (telephone users San Marino citizens of the Prima state company are very few and do not allow for a ranking and the rest are Italian prefixes, therefore indistinguishable from ours), has made use of the votes of the jury alone (5 people) in recent years.
Here is how the San Marino jury voted over the years:
2011: 12 points (complete with boos in the Arena in Düsseldorf)
2012: 7 points (12 points awarded to Albania, which in the vote of the juries was third and fifth in total)
2013: 4 points (12 points awarded to Greece, sixth overall)
2014: 0 points (Italy with Emma placed 17th in the San Marino jury, in line with Italy’s average placement in the European juries)
2015: 10 points (12 points awarded to Latvia, which in the jury vote was the second most voted and sixth overall)
A total therefore of 33 points out of a maximum potential of 60 points, a pretty good loot and in all cases in line c
San Marino, votes to Italy from 2016 to 2021
From 2016 to today, the voting system has changed, effectively separating the rankings of televoting and the jury and therefore doubling the set of votes available for each country.
In this case, San Marino was in fact found out on televoting for the reasons mentioned above. The solution found by the EBU (and still not appreciated by the Titan TV) is that of a “simulated” televoting obtained by combining five televoting from as many nations close to San Marino for geographical or cultural reasons.
These five countries are never revealed, nor is it known whether or not they change over the years, but it is to think that according to these criteria, theItalythere Greece And Cyprus may have been a part of it in recent years.
If in the previous five years the only criticisms came, albeit in a very calm form, when Marco Mengoni obtained a few points from the Titan (five people do not make up an entire population, moreover), in this second period campaigns are born of discredit against San Marino, which however they are not based on real data. Now we will see why.
For convenience, we report only the votes given by the jury:
2016: 10 points (12 points awarded all ‘Ukrainewho was second with the juries and won thanks to Jamala)
2017: 3 points (12 points awarded to Portugalabsolute triumph of 2017)
2018: 4 points (12 points ad Israelwho was third in the juries and overall winner)
2019: 12 points
2021: 10 points (12 points awarded to Francesecond both in the vote of the juries and in total)
It is in the 2017 that the controversies invade and go crazy for the net, from the well-known modifications of the pages Wikipedia related to the microstate up to real campaigns that supported in every way that Francesco Gabbani had to have the maximum points from San Marino for the party taken.
Useless controversy, since even with 12 points instead of 3, Francesco Gabbani he would also have finished sixth in the final count (343 compared to 334 obtained, less than Sweden which obtained 344).
In 2018 commentators certainly don’t help, with Saverio Raimondo that during the first crime he let slip a few too many on the matter, that he had lost only word that Francesco Gabbani had lost only and exclusively for the San Marino jury, unleashing the ire of the San Marino head of delegation Alessandro Capicchioni who harshly criticized Raimondo’s statements, with a press release directed directly from Lisbon.
So, despite the fact that the state of San Marino has assigned Italy a total of 72 points (110 also the votes of simulated televoting), there are those who still blindly claim that San Marino does not vote for Italy, and to say that a quick search on Wikipedia to put an end to this question once and for all.
How many points did Italy give to San Marino?
But now let’s look at the flip side, how many times Italy has voted for San Marino at the Eurovision Song Contest?
To date, only on three occasions has it happened that Italy voted in the semifinal in which San Marino also competed: in 2012 when Valentina Monetta received 3 pointsin 2015 when the duo formed by Anita Simoncini And Michele Perniola got 6 points and in 2018 when the duo created for the occasion and formed by Jessica Moscato And Jennifer Brening got 5 points by the jury (by a 15th place in the Italian televoting). So in the semifinal the state of San Marino received 14 points from Italy out of a theoretical maximum of 48.
Also this year, however, Italy will not be able to vote for San Marino in the semifinals because Achille Lauro is included in the second semifinal while Italy is called to vote in the first.
For three times instead Italy clashed with San Marino in the final: in 2014 with Valentina Monetta to the third participation, in 2019 with Serhat and in 2021 with Senhit and Flo Rida. In 2014 televoting placed Valentina in sixth place, but she was sunk by the juries, dropping to 13th place overall, in 2019 neither televoting nor the jury awarded points to Serhat (where he was last for the juries and twenty-first in televoting) and finally in 2021 Italy finally awarded 3 points in San Marino from televoting, with the jury that placed Adrenaline in 13th place.
So only 3 points in the final in San Marino overall, in this case with 60 points available (12 in 2014, 24 in the other two cases).