I think this should be changed. I cannot imagine that this pay-to-win mechanic has any positive effects.

Usually it's more than a few cents (i think 0.5 to 2 euros). This is actually a great way to vote and fund the contest at the same time. There's little financial incentive to cheat (it's not like a lottery) so if you spend more money, on average, you care more. Also the amount each individual spends in generally very small (ie a handful of votes) so it's about as democratic as this can get without involving some kind of state-id based authentication.

Also worth pointing out there is a cap on the number of votes you can make (maximum 20), and a time limit of 10 - 15 minutes during which you're able to vote. So no one can vote without paying, but they can't spend more than $8 USD on votes either. (In Australia, a vote costs 55c, about 40c US.)

Of course there's people who can try buying SIM cards & running bots, but in theory that's what the PwC vote auditing and Digame's systems are meant to detect & block.

I did not know any of this. Thank you for adding this.

Would you say the same thing about actual elections? Should billionairres be allowed to buy millions of votes because they care more? Should nations buy votes as a from of propaganda?

The stakes for Eurovision are about as low as a doorstop. If someone cares about it as much as they do about national elections, well quite frankly they deserve the opportunity to buy the vote :) there’s worse things people can obsess about.

It’s a game, it’s a show. Technically, so are politics, but so far Eurovision has not cost any human lives, nor have pensions evaporated. To my knowledge.

Then again, judging by the reaction of some people, that might change soon :)

Real elections have real stakes. Eurovision is just a song contest. Who really cares who wins? You get some glory, and in exchange you have to organise the event the next year.

During the 1990s, Ireland won so much that at some point they were hoping to lose, because they couldn't afford to win again.

But win a real election and you get to set laws and make decisions worth billions of dollars, and influence the lives of millions of people. They couldn't be more different.

Well it does discourage bots, and it finances the contest. I don't really see big downsides, as it's not very expensive either.