Rest Jury

In editions with double semifinals, starting with Nation Song Contest 18, a "rest jury" is an extra set of results for a semifinal containing additional votes from nations participating in the opposite semifinal. Any edition contains two rest juries, one for each semifinal. As of *edition being researched*, [|unrecognized nations applying to participate] have been allowed to vote in one or both rest juries of either semifinal. Voting in the rest jury is optional for the eligible nations, and no punishment is issued for non-voting nations. Voting is done in the regular 1-8, 10, 12 point system.

The purpose of a rest jury is to find a finalist from a semifinal of the opposite semifinal's preference. Whatever entry gets the highest rest jury result that didn't qualify by regular means (1st to 10th place in the semifinal results) is added as an 11th qualifier. This entry may have reached any place in the regular results, but may not be from a nation that failed to vote in its own semifinal. The identities of an edition's two rest jury qualifiers are kept classified until the edition has fully ended.

The system was inspired by a similar system used in the Eurovision Song Contest during 2008 and 2009, where, if the top 10 of the public voting results didn't match with the top 10 of the countries' professional juries, the tenth placed song was replaced with a jury favorite. The name "rest jury" comes from the system's nature of being an extra jury consisting of the rest of the participating nations.

The rest jury is not to be confused with the waiting list jury, which is used in an edition's final as a single additional set of votes based on combined votes from unrecognized nations.