Vidbir 2022 started with technological wonders, but ended with technical issues. Several contestants, including Kalush Orchestra and Cloudless, have called for full transparancy on the exact voting results following the scoreboard malfunction. Next to that, the “Stefania” hitmakers shared on Instagram Stories that they want to start a petition.
Vidbir 2022 voting reveal: what happened?
After the jury votes at Vidbir 2022, the show became a three-horse race between the three big favourites prior to the show: Kalush Orchestra, Wellboy and Alina Pash. However, the televoting reveal experienced serious technical issues.
Host Timur Miroshnychenko first revealed that the public had awarded Michael Soul one point. Subsequently, he misread the name of the act that had gotten two points from the public. Initially, he said that Our Atlantic had received two points, but he later corrected himself, saying that Cloudless had received two points. The scoreboard showed two points for Our Atlantic.
However, the scoreboard displaying the results then stopped working. After several attempts to revive the monitor, organisers decided to continue without the technology. Eventually, after the hosts revealed several more results, the show started to get confusing.
Noticing the confusion, jury member Yaroslav Lodygin took the initiative to write down all the scores on a sheet of paper. Following that, means of pen and paper determined that Alina Pash had won the selection, being second in the televoting behind Kalush Orchestra and in front of Wellboy.
Kalush Orchestra call for transparancy after following scoreboard malfunction
Shortly after the final, Kalush Orchestra wanted to see the exact results, but told the press that producers refused to show them the sheet that Timur Miroshnychenko held in his hands. The group’s main rapper Oleh Psiuk subsequently confronted Oleksiy Honcharenko in the corridor of the venue. He livestreamed the confrontation on his Instagram account, where over 11,000 people watched along.
Accusing the show of falsifying the result, Oleh Psiuk asked Honcharenko, the show’s main producer, to explain the developments. Honcharenko stated that there had been no falsification, but walked off in annoyance after a follow-up question.
Kalush Orchestra turned around to confront the PwC notary who took care of the voting, asking her whether they could see the full voting data. However, this request was refused.
Kalush Orchestra disturb Yaroslav Lodygin’s press moment
Following that, Oleh Psiuk disturbed the press moment of jury member Yaroslav Lodygin. Standing next to the press, Oleh questioned him: “Why was Wellboy in third place? Why were people confused that Alina Pash was in second place? Why do we not have the amount of votes?”
Yaroslav answered: “Timur had a editorial mistake in his ear [monitor], as he was reading a document on which there were a lot of numbers. This is as much as I realised in the short time between what was said. That confusion did not relate to the leading positions, as you remember, there, the results were very clearly sounded off.”
“Concerning the amount of votes, (…) we might have negotiations with the authorative company, which has put their name on the honesty and independence of the counting, there should not be secrets about how many people should have voted. We are not a commercial organisation, we are a public broadcaster, we are not allowed to have a goal of earning a large sum from those SMS texts.”
Oleh also shared his frustration with Lodygin about the situation in the corridors while being denied access to the exact voting data.
Following the show, Cloudless lead singer Yuriy Kandalosh uploaded a series of Instagram stories in which he also shared his annoyance over the results. He said that the voting had been a “falsification” and that he could not understand why his group finished last in the jury voting. Next to that, he also called Roxolana’s 3 jury points undeserved and worthy of more. However, on the morning of Sunday, he deleted all the stories from his Instagram account.
Volodymyr Ostapchuk goes viral with a sketch on the voting
Very shortly after the voting had happened, Eurovision 2017 host Volodymyr Ostapchuk took to Instagram to share his disappointment in the voting reveal scene. He wrote on his stories: “2022. The voting results for the selection for Eurovision are written on a sheet of paper. Curtain.”
Dit bericht op Instagram bekijken
He uploaded a short sketch comedy in which he parodied Timur Miroshnychenko’s problems with deciding the eventual winner together with the jury. The sketch has since gone viral and gained over 250,000 views overnight.
Vidbir 2022 contestant Wellboy commented on the sketch, writing “the strongest [laughing emoji]” in the comment section. Jury member Tina Karol wrote a more elaborate comment: “Alas, Volodymyr, you are right in that it’s impossible to not troll or pass by that exact moment.”
What do you think about the situation? Let us know in the comments down below!
Additional reporting by Renske
I like Alina Pash and bitter contestants are not my favorite people, but Kalush is right to ask for transparency. The organizers have nothing to hide, do they?
Not just the Ukraine, you have to go right back to the beginning of the selection process…and that goes for all countries.. Who decides who decides, and back further, who decides who decides the deciders ? So it all boils down to who you know..
I’m not into seeing conspiracies everywhere but c’mon, this was so rigged. How the hell did Cloudless get THREE(!) different versions of their points with TWO presenters looking at the paper with the results which are supposedly not known to anyone else at the moment. Disgusting and embarrassing
And you don’t think that if it was rigged they would have the rigged results ready? Like, ready days before the contest even? Why did they have to make things up as they go and turn all the suspicion on them? How hard is it to rig points for 8 contestants and then calmly present them?
I don’t know why they were so bad at rigging it. Probably, not everyone involved was “in” on it but now the broadcaster has to roll with it to keep the face
its ukraine, they dont even do a background check on the contestants.
Release the full results and the scandal is over. Simples ??
I think they mess it up bit the results were the same. Not who I would of voted for bit its was clear that’s Ukraine’s choice. Let’s judge them in the semi, not now.
What a pity for a – by the moment – the best NF! Ukraine is the Spain of eastern Europe, welcome drama!
I imagine the final drama: Jamala calling to Alina saying in secret: Hi Alina, hi Alina Pash. Welcome to Turin, so I have a very so comfortable question to you: do you wanna win?
Alina said: – Indeed, of course! (read it like Maruv)
Jamala, with her Alicia Keys’ outfit said: – Ok (clapping her hands), ok….
When I say I burst out laughing XD
Ukraine will be top 5 again
Kalush doesn’t know how to lose.
Says a lot about the person
Umm first the Lodyhin guy from the jury insulted them saying they “just came out of a forest”, and the whole announcement was a farce, most likely rigged. And you think, they should just keep quiet and accept such disrespect?
I do not understand the hype about this song… I do not like this song.
Because it’s political at the moment and the eurofans secretly love the drama of it all rather than the song.
Can totally see this winning in May.
And this is why Eurovision has the reputation that it has outside of the fandom.
An act that was considered a favourite beforehand won. The betting odds are reflecting this is a correct choice.
Cyndi Almouzni in the UK should of demanded a recount in 2007 and saved us from the terrible Scooch.
As much as I despise the UK’s acts in the 00’s… Scooch was 15 years ago lol
That was disgrace! I enjoyed the show so much, especially with support to Michael Soul (who’s from Belarus originally and he was sharing how personally and artistically free he feels in Ukraine, plus that sweet message from Naviband) , Oleh’s proud and tearful mother etc. But in the end it was ruined by that circus surrounding televote announcement. It’s clear to me the winner was preselected. Such a shame for such original band like Kalush Orchestra to lose out to what is clearly politically staged intro as what eventual winner is. Alena didn’t seem genuine at all to me
The jury simply downvoted English songs and they wanted Alina to win, by putting her last and all those patriotism by showing Ukraine in performance of Alina.
if only Alina were more patriotic and banned her English rap stuff
Something was very weird, phony and strange. It started when broadcaster suddenly changed running order.
I just watched segments of the show, and they seemed to have a lot of technical issues during the show. It was especially with transitions and animations, so I would not be surprised if their computers crashed or something because the scoreboard requires a lot of graphics and things.
Is this a case of PR where a phony drama is created to garner sympathy, or is Suspilne truly as scr*wed as it appears? This isn’t the first time the Ukrainian broadcaster has mocked contestants. This year, I believe Ukraine is as politically strong as it has ever been, perhaps even stronger than it was in 2016 with Jamala.:/
Ukraine should just not do any national selection if they keep screwing over the winners.. Marum and now Kalush.
Just select internally and stop pretending there is something to choose at all!
I don’t understand why Ukraine keeps on having national selections if they keep on having this drama that surrounds the winner
Because their NF is one of the best there is?
Would have much preferred Kalush Orchestra over Alina but I doubt she’ll be disqualified
Vidbir without drama is not vidbir:)
Please Ukraine let’s pass a year without any drama 🙁
It’s just so sad to see a contest end with such high speculations of manipulation of the final result. I watched the event from the livestream and everyone was so confused with what had happened in the first 4 acts. Even though Alina Pash was my personal winner, Kalush Orchestra brought such originality with their reimagined hip-hop and folk fusion in Vidbir 2022 and it would be shameful for the entire contest to have ended in such a way. P.s. Wellboy was favored so that they could butcher Roxolena, his 7 jury points belonged to Kalush Orchestra and the 6… Read more »
I didn’t watch the show, but if there were such problems I can see, why the contestants want transparency. This sounds amateurish at best and suspicious at worst.
Here we see again Eurovision fans being dramatic and conflating a simple graphical error that had to be produced during the break having a slight error. Do you really think the broadcasting network would waste money on a national selection if they could just internally pick the song and artist? Seems like a massive waste of money and an immense amount of embarrassment to go through just to get the song you want. Just because your artist doesn’t win or the song you like doesn’t go to Eurovision doesn’t automatically mean there is some shady dealings or some massive conspiracy… Read more »
you have never watched vidbir before and it shows
I have watched Vidbir…. since 2017. The voting system is odd with the judges having far too much power for my own liking. But, conflating a graphical error into something it’s not is weird and unnecessary.
Should the Broadcasters publish the voting results just to clear the air? Sure. But that doesn’t legitimize the hysteria caused by a simple mistake made on live results show.
again, are you sure you watched it? didnt you show how many mistakes Timur made, how many times he corrected the results and whatever? is it that hard to announce 8 points?
You’re absolutely right
Do you include Kalush in this? Is transparency too much to ask for?
Also, broadcaster MAKE money from nfs, especially in Eastern Europe from voting, so they could have done this as a means of money just like TVR in Romania and Lithuania in 2021 (I assume) just a thought
It was a really embarrassing shambles of a vote reveal. I really cannot understand why this happened on something that should have been very simple. The mistrust of jury involvement in voting has never been higher.
I do see both sides of the argument. I think that after the whole situation with Spain, all national finals should have total transparency. Given the political context of what is going on with Ukraine and their history with the contest/NF, it would be good for them to explain why the scoreboard did fail and post all the data. I think it is fair for Kalush to ask for the scores and data, especially because they lost by only 1 point (and also people are saying Alina was pushed because of the song’s message given the current circumstances). All of… Read more »
As usual, pretty much speculation and no evidence. It’s not like we haven’t seen this before (not just in Ukraine).
Let’s be honest, this looks really bad. They’re acting like reading 8 numbers in a piece of paper is a super complicated task, and not only that, they refuse to show that simple thing. And all while blaming a malfunctioning scoreboard. This is beyond ridiculous.
A few minutes before Maruv won in 2019, the host was given a piece of paper (!) and read a text saying that the broadcaster has the right to not send the winner of the contest to eurovision. We all know what happened next. Maybe next year the broadcaster will falsify the results through whatsapp and not with pieces of paper as they normally do
Right?
8 acts, 8 sets of points, where is the confusion?
What makes it worse is one of the jurors wrote down the results too?
like, if there were issues cut to a break and sort it out/??
He wrote down the results because the scoreboard couldn’t show up. Since he knew how to do addition and knows they cannot prolong the show any further after four hours, he made everyone’s lives easier by doing the tabulations himself. He listed down the points he, Tina and Jamala had already given out, and asked Timur for the votes the acts received from the public so he himself could tabulate. The points from the public were given to them by the independent accounting firm the broadcaster hired so it’s their name and reputation on the line if things doesn’t add… Read more »
Watching the show it was so clear that they were literally fighting in the control room as to who will win and Timur announced wrong points many times because they couldn’t decide what to do. They could have avoided the drama by internally selecting Alina.
Juries and National television want Alina at ESC. Web saw that in juries points
Ukraine can show a map of ukraine including crimea and ebu has no problem, but Armenia cant have a flag of Armenian territory in Green room and gets fined. I see, another success of Jon ola sand’s time in charge.
So Ukraine cant show its own map on its own internal selection? Moscowites and germans are crazy in their hate for Ukraine…
i am neither of these, i just dont get why Ukraine has a free pass on political messages and other countries cant
I dont see any political messages in Ukrainian songs
Ok clown there is no political message in Jamala’s song.
National selections are NOT part of Eurovision and therefore not covered by any Eurovision rules. They are TV shows organised by local broadcasters on their own.
People who see an issue in the map of Ukraine might have an issue themselves…
you know esc 2022 hasn’t happened yet, right?
you know they plan to show the exact same map right?
Do they? Ukraine usually change a lot their staging from Vidbir to ESC.
they main message of the song and its purpose wont change. The broadcaster this for certain reasons. No chance they will downgrade it.
meh, I’m very doubtful about your foretelling skills. To me, this map was aimed at the Ukrainian public to show unity in diversity (in all areas of Ukraine), “one for all and all for one”. there is zero debate whether crimea is Ukrainian or not in Ukraine, so that’s not a political move to show the map the way it is shown everywhere in the country. I highly doubt the map will stay as indeed it would convey a totally different message in Turin. And frankly, Ukraine knows better staging than a basic map 😉 I see a song about… Read more »
they could have internally selected Alina and there would be no drama…
but yes i think they wanted to send this entry for political reasons (i mean see the Ukrainian map with Crimea at the end). This is 1944 pt2 but it does not have the power of Jamala.
no, these songs are different, try to listen to them carefully several times…
This is even better than Jamala, and you can see it shooting up the odds. Make no mistake, this is the contender to beat.
They should be disqualified .
who they?
The whole world is waiting for a war between Ukraine and Russia. Do you think Ukraine would lose the opportunity to promote Ukrainian identity in times it is questioned, through a contest watched by 180 million people? Come on now 😉
The whole world is fueling the fire. Demented Biden, for example.
…or maybe germans and moscowites try to start their common fourth reich
I mean there is one quick and easy way to solve all of this in a heartbeat and it has something to do with a certain country pulling back 180.000 troops on a certain border.
Then just pick it without selection
No one’s questioning that, it’s just that they could select her directly internally without this whole drama
I totally believe that they cooked the results, i mean it’s Ukraine.. why did they score low the big favourite Kalusho? They knew they were going to smash the televoting. How come WellBoy came 3rd and not 2nd? He’s a hot name. Isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that at the time of revealing the points from the public, the system broke down and no scoreboard was available? Counting the votes in a piece of paper is tragic and ridiculous. It just shows you how unprofessional the whole thing was and how easily the result could’ve been rigged. Full… Read more »
Broadcaster also suddenly changed running order. And the jury downvoted English songs.
1. Because maybe the professional jury doesn’t believe a rap entry is the best fit compared to the other songs that were in the NF in a contest that never had a place for rap so far? 2. Maybe because Alina Pash is also a hot name, and she was a, if not the favorite of this edition even before songs were released. 3. The scoreboard broke down probably cuz they didn’t know how to erase a result already written ? Clearly that’s a basic technical issue, pen and paper are as good to count points. 4. At last on… Read more »
No disrespect for the participants, but if the channel wanted Alina Pash to represent Ukraine in Turin so much, they could’ve selected her internally and save themselves all this subsequent drama and sh*tshow, or at least they should’ve falsified the results better xd
Ukraine has a history of politicizing the contest. Given the situation in the borders, its not a coincidence that they are sending a song about forgotten ancestors… If the broadcaster had nothing to hide, they would just show the paper immediately.
Right? That broadcaster is shady af.
Right? That broadcaster is shady af. It’s interesting to me that they want to win again. The must have lots of money.
they care about sending a song that has a message related with the political crisis. The lyrics of the song fit perfectly with what is actually going on between Russia and Ukraine. Even if they win (which will be scandalous imo) i dont think they will host.
Why? They got to host in 2017 despite soooo many unacceptable controversies.
I hope that EBU does not want to go through this drama again. I hope. But then, it has a long history of pampering ukraine
EBU is happy with this political presentation of song on stage . I predict Ukraine to win the contest, thanks again to politics. They had won thanks to politics in 2016. Ukraine must win, because web will not see Russia in contest 2023.
God I just can’t take this anymore, when will Ukraine pay proper respect to their artists. ik it’s a bit hard in the country rn but that doesn’t excuse this kind of behavior. trust me, they don’t need to act like this to do well at the contest.
I wonder if they win again, will they call Christer Björkman in March 2023 to do the entire contest for them like in 2017?
a contest in a warzone produced by Bjorkman sounds like a nightmare
I wonder where the cash comes from
they are not going to win, and i am sure EBU did not want them to win in 2016, they’d rather have Australia but they didn’t get support from the public.
Contest in 2017 was organized by Ukrainian producers, while Bjorkman came here after Melfest in March to help with his segment like he did in other countries. Does now Bjorkman teach Americans to make their Eurovision?
What the actual hell is wrong with Ukraine and their mysterious voting system. And it’s not even the first time this happens. I love Ukraine, but the amount of corruption is this country is insane. If they already predetermined the winner why it’s not an internal selection?
better concern about corruption in your country
I read it was intentionally rigged or at least favored for Alina and that song of hers but since I have no clue whether it’s true I’m taking everything with scepticism. I will say this though: I don’t care for a repeat of 2016 and I find it bad enough that Jamala is a Eurovision winner forever. Frankly, I’d prefer Alina as a winner because her singing doesn’t depress me, I actually would like it if it weren’t for the English rap. But regarding the competition it feels like a shadow of the not forgotten past of 2016. Might be… Read more »
Then again it’s not Alina’s fault that Jamala happened in 2016.
well, germans always against Ukraine and hate Jamala
If this type of faults makes you win the whole.contest I want more of this
It is interesting to me that they have no problem winning and other countries do everything to lose. Money seems to be no problem.
Songwise jamala fully deserved to win over sound of silence and you’re the only one.
I disagree. I think her song is awful. The other two are boring songs, they weren’t my winners either.
The results don’t depend on your opinion alone. Jamala was a deserved winner.
And I say she wasn’t. Why do you get to decide that she was a worthy winner in everyone’s opinion? The only fact is that she is a winner. Deserved is not a fact, it is your opinion
She won the juries, came second in the televote. That’s not an opinion.
Oops, she did not win the juries. Maybe you win.
See that’s just it. I agree with the fact that she is the winner according to the rules. For me she should not have won because I don’t like her entry. Maybe I should find another word. She is the deserved winner according to the results. My opinion is that her entry was not good and should not have won. But I concede she won fair. Enough people obviously voted.
No. She makes me mute the sound.
Creeps are crawling out of the woodwork to claim shenanigans. I loved Kalush Orchestra too, but they lost fair and square. Now don’t be like that Albanian guy from a few years ago and start a billion accounts just to comment nonsense and downvote other comments. It’s happened and it’s a waste of time.
Keep downvoting me as you please. For all the times this site has brought me joy, including down here in the comments section, there’s a whole lot of times where this comments section is where joy goes to die.
I agree, I’ve seen some really toxic comments that still give me nightmares. Seriously, all this drama for nothing.
It’s so dumb. Life’s too short to get hung up on this.
It was less than 24 hours ago. They made a mess of announcing the results, so questions are to be asked – if they can answer those questions satisfactorily, then it’s over. If not, then people are right to be suspicious.
I agree with the comments below that if they wanted to falsify, they could have made it more obvious, the actual jury and public results seem very logical.
But, I do also understand why Ukranians are mad because it seemed like a mess, not even allowing transparancy does make it look shady but it also seems like they just hate Alina for almost performing in Russia (which she didn’t…) so the whole situation seems just messy
In spite of the fact that she has about as pro-Ukrainian a song as it gets
Have you ever met a Ukrainian nationalist? They will call you maloroska for literally anything and are obsessed with finding them. Since Pash was accused, no amount of evidence would save her from the hate.
Alina is politically unstable, she cant represent Ukraine in such difficult moment of history.
Didn’t she have concerts in Crimea? That’s what I heard, don’t quote me.
yes, she even traveled to Crimea using airlines of moscowites, what is illegal
i think it was rigged from the start because they wanted alina either way
Can Armenia also send a political crap, or is that only Ukraine’s privilege?
Ukraine banned an entry from the contest they hosted and EBU did nothing and Armenia was fined for a flag in the green room. The double standards are real
Athena is coming haha – “Chains on borders”
i hope she does, she deserves a second chance
Oh yes please i am aganist all the political stuff but Athena i can’t say no to her 😀
Still don’t understand how Jamala’s song was allowed to enter in 2016.
I don’t understand how juries across europe just went for it
Armenia has had better and more original entries than those of Azerbaijan, a win for them is overdue imo
Azerbaijan has never had a song of its own making.
If the results were fake, why couldn’t they just print the fake numbers on that paper that was handled to the host and show them to everyone? Why would they put Alina in the 2nd position in the televote if they could just place her first and claim that she won the popular vote as well? People wouldn’t know if she did or not, many people voted for her for sure. Like, it’s the weirdest way to falsify results. Almost as if they decided to let her win in the very last moment of the broadcast.
well, the host literally changed his mind for the points he announced at least 3 times… as if somebody was telling him in his ear what to say….
So you believe that they printed the real results of the televote on that paper, although nobody could force them to, but they still did it, just to clumsily rig the results as they go during the announcement on live tv? And then they had to run away with that paper which was the evidence against them THAT THEY CREATED THEMSELVES? Like, that doesn’t sound completely silly to you? Why would they even count the votes if they were going to rig the results anyway?
Not that silly if it was not orchestrated from the very top. The auditing company could have very well provided the real verified result and who knows whatever happened in that earpiece. They’re refusal to show the official results (in previous years, even the number of televotes used to be announced) is very telling