In this editorial, I aim to decipher what the results, which were revealed this morning by SVT, of Melodifestivalen 2014 really mean. I’ve spent a couple of hours number crunching and have come up with some very interesting statistics that have become clear to me as I’ve analysed the figures released today. I will be assessing the average number of votes (per semifinal in total), making comparisons to previous years (in regard to small voting totals) and also displaying who was very close to qualifying from their semifinals as well as just how close one certain artist was to not being a finalist.

Average scores

Starting with deltävling1, all four qualifiers were above the average vote total of 51,557.25. YOHIO won with 117,219; Ellen Benediktson was second earning 99,444; Helena Paparizou was someway further back in third place with 70,438 followed by Linus gaining 60,732.
Deltävling 2 also featured all four qualifiers being above the average vote total of 42,473.125. Sanna Nielsen was the runaway winner with almost a third of the entire vote, receiving 109,592 votes. The fight for second place was close with Martin Stenmarck only 5,504 votes behind Panetoz (they earned 51,897 and 57,401 respectively). Fourth placed JEM received 45,662.
It must be remarked that deltävling 3 featured one of the lowest vote totals in the history of the competition. Only 258,030 votes were made in total. The top five ranking acts here were all above the average total of 32,007.125. Oscar Zia won the semifinal with 60,735 votes whilst there was a monumental battle for second place as well as fourth place.
The story here is that Ace Wilder, eventual runner-up, was third after the first voting round. She then took the second place ticket to the Final by just 861 votes, sending State of Drama to Andra chansen instead. Ace received 43,704 and State of Drama, 42,843. In addition, State of Drama were the act to receive the least votes in Round 2 of the vote.
The secondary story here is that Outtrigger only just earned the fourth placed ticket to Andra chansen by 856 votes ahead of the dr. alban & Jessica Folcker duet. Outtrigger received 38,586 whilst dr. alban & Jessica Folcker got 37,730 votes.
EKO, the act which earned their place in the contest via the Svensktoppen nästa 2013 result, received only 9,053 votes, ending in last place.
Back to basics with deltävling 4 in which all four qualifiers were above the average vote total of 39,571.125. Alcazar won the semifinal with 97,453 votes ahead of Anton Ewald in second place with 71,675. The two acts going to Andra chansen were comfortably through with Ellinore Holmer third, receiving 45,876 votes, and Ammotrack fourth with 41,627 votes.
Andra chansen cannot be analysed exactly like the preceding semifinals so we will only analyse the first part of this show in which all eight songs performed, exactly like in the semifinals. The average vote total in this was 52,417.625, which the top four, which proceeded to the duel phase of the show, all exceeded. The bottom two, the qualifiers from deltävling 4, Ammotrack and Ellinore Holmer were some distance behin the rest only receiving 16,998 and 17,685 votes respectively. JEM finished sixth with 28,626 just 726 votes behind State of Drama who proceeded to the second round vote which 29,652 votes, who in turn were just 1329 votes behind Martin Stenmarck in fourth. State of Drama finished the second round of voting with a total of 51,502 votes,  5,545 behind Martin.
The make-up of the duels has now been made public too. Linus Svenning won Andra chansen with 94,952 votes and faced up against Martin Stenmarck who came fourth with 57,047. In their duel, however, Linus only won his ticket to the final by 5,862 votes. Helena Paparizou came second, scoring 91,572 votes, and went up against Outtrigger who were third with 60,959. In this duel, Helena received more than twice as many votes, winning 123,859 to Outtrigger’s 51,627.

Who almost didn’t qualify? (…and other interesting voting statistics!)

Semifinal 1:

• Sylvester Schlegel only received 5,934 votes, just behind Mahan Moin with 6,943.
• Sylvester Schlegel’s total of 5,934 votes is the fourth lowest vote in a semifinal since 2007, just ahead of Jay-Jay Johanson (“Paris”, 2013 – 5,526), Py Bäckman (“Magisk stjärna”, 2010 – 3,822) and Addis Black Widdow (“Clubbin’”, 2007 – 3,717).

Semifinal 2:

•  Everyone in this semifinal earned over 10,000 votes.

Semifinal 3:

•  Eventual runner-up Ace Wilder was 2^nd place, 861 votes away from having to battle through Andra chansen for a place in the Final.
• dr. alban & Jessica Folcker were 856 votes away from a qualification spot to Andra chansen in place of Outtrigger in fourth place.

Semifinal 4:

• Janet Leon was in last place with just 8,307 votes behind Josef Johansson with 9,953. Josef was only 625 votes behind I.D.A in sixth place.
• I.D.A’s “Fight Me If You Dare” was the sixth song entered via the public composition/web joker competition that failed to qualify.

Andra chansen:

• Ammotrack and Ellinore Holmer only received 16,998 and 17,685 votes respectively.
• JEM finished sixth with 28,626 just 726 votes behind State of Drama who proceeded to the second round vote which 29,652 votes.
• State of Drama were just 1329 votes behind Martin Stenmarck in fourth place after the first round vote and finished the second round of voting with a total of 51,502 votes,  5,545 behind Martin.

Final:

• For the third consecutive year, the UK jury did not agree with the result of Melodifestivalen. In 2012, the UK jury only gave Loreen 6 points (ranking her 4^th) in 2013, Robin Stjernberg received 0 from the UK and in 2014, Sanna Nielsen received 6 points (ranked 4^th).
• The 23,957 gap between first placed Sanna Nielsen and runner-up Ace Wilder in the televote is the second closest 1st-2nd place differential in the last ten years, only eclipsed by the 3,705 vote gap in 2009.