Voting in the Eurovision final

In all participating countries, the televoting and jury voting result in two ranked lists of all songs;

Televoters can vote via the official app, telephone and/or SMS. The voting window opens after the last song has been performed, and ends 15 minutes later. These votes determine 50% of the outcome and are gathered by the EBU’s voting partner digame;

Professional juries are also required to vote. They determine 50% of the outcome. The jury, which consists of five members (including a chairperson) is the same jury that voted in one of the Semi-Finals. They will watch live and rank all songs based on the second Dress Rehearsal, the so called Jury Final;

The EBU’s voting partner digame will determine the national result by merging these two ranked lists, and will award 12 points to the country with the best combined rank of the jury and the televoting, then 10 points to country with the second-best combined rank, etc. The country ranked 10th in the combined ranking receives 1 point;

Since traditionally only 12, 10 and 8-1 points are being given, countries ranked outside of the top-10 do not receive points. Also, televoters and juries cannot vote for the country they represent;

If there is a tie between two or more songs in the combined ranking between televotes and the jury, the song that obtain a better ranking from the televote will prevail over the other;

Based on the combined full ranking of all songs of televoting and jury voting, each country will distribute 1 to 8, 10 and 12 points; The combined results of jury voting and televoting will be presented on air during the Final by spokespersons in all participating countries. As usual, the points 1 to 7 will appear on screen. The spokesperson will then reveal 8, 10 and 12 points.

The full result, including the televoting and the jury result in every participating country will be published on Eurovision.tv after the Grand Final

Source: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/vienna-2015/about/voting

Qualified Majority Voting in the EU Council

From 1 November 2014 a new procedure for qualified majority voting applies in the Council. Under this procedure, when the Council votes on a proposal by the Commission or the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, a qualified majority is reached if two conditions are met:

1. 55% of member states vote in favour – in practice this means 16 out of 28
2. the proposal is supported by member states representing at least 65% of the total EU population

This new procedure is also known as the ‘double majority’ rule.

Blocking minority

The blocking minority must include at least four Council members representing more than 35% of the EU population.

Special cases

When not all Council members participate in the vote, for example due to an opt-out in certain policy areas, a decision is adopted if 55% of the participating Council members, representing at least 65% of the population of the participating member states, vote in favour.

When the Council votes on a proposal not coming from the Commission or the high representative a decision is adopted if:

1. at least 72% of Council members vote in favour
2. they represent at least 65% of the EU population

Abstentions

An abstention under qualified majority voting counts as a vote against. Abstention is not the same as not participating in the vote. Any member can abstain at any time.

Source: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/qualified-majority/