Hello,

Poll 2011 has launched with 4 polls - 2 for each semi final (and 2 more for the final which will open when all finalists are known).

Each show has a prediction poll where you vote to rank the songs in the order you honestly predict that they will finish (which may not be the order you hope they finish), and also a wishlist poll where you vote for the songs in the order that you hope they finish (which, of course, may not be the order you predict they finish).

The current results for all the polls can be seen on the right hand bar of every page, as well as on the dedicated results pages for each individual poll. I hope by displaying live results it won't influence people's choices when they vote; it's just there to let you know how the standings are at the present moment in time without having to wait until May for the final results.

Poll 2011 will also be used with escdaily.com's readers to provide a larger pool of results as well, in another example of our ongoing collaborations.

You can vote in the poll either by looking to the Poll 2011 section of the right hand side bar or by visiting the Poll 2011 page.

Vote using the familiar drag-and-drop method which was used in Poll 2010 last year and the voting phases of all recent escChat.com Song Contests. Only one set of votes per user account are permitted for each poll, and only one user account per computer may vote.

Guests may also vote, but if they then choose to sign up for an account after voting, those votes are transferred to their new user account and are not counted twice. Similarly, if you are logged in and vote, then log out and try to vote again as a guest or as another user account, the new votes will be rejected automatically and you will be advised onscreen to log back in as the user account used when originally casting the votes in order to amend them.

As with Poll 2010, there is no 'Save' button - when you change the order of the votes, they are automatically logged. You can come back to it at any time in the future to change your existing votes until the voting window closes.

Each poll will close when the relevant live show starts.