Malta’s Eurovision hopeful Destiny won the first semi-final with 325 points, the official Eurovision scoreboard has shown.

The official results also show that the Maltese gave their highest televoting points to Italy, which eventually won the grand final.

Even though Malta’s jury gave 12 points to the obscure song by Albania, the Maltese televote went to Italy (12 points), Norway (10 points), Sweden (eight points), Finland (seven points), Lithuania (six points), Iceland (five points), Serbia (four points), France (three points), Cyprus (two points) and Ukraine (one point). 

In the grand final, Malta received only 47 points from the televote, mostly from Australia (eight points), the UK (six points), Israel (five points) and Ireland (four points). Norway, Iceland, Spain and Greece gave Destiny three points. Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Romania gave Malta two points, while Cyprus and the Netherlands gave Malta one point each.

These points added to the jury votes that Malta received, which included 12 points from Norway, Romania, Australia and Sweden. Italy’s jury gave Malta seven points while the Italian public gave zero points to Destiny. Malta eventually placed 7th, below Ukraine which it beat in the semi-final.

Malta’s jury was made up of ex-Eurovision singers Ira Losco and Michela, as well as Sigmund Mifsud, Annaliz Azzopardi and Kevin Abela.

What do you think about how the votes were distributed?