In recent weeks, claims of electoral fraud have appeared on social media. But what has happened, and does everything being highlighted really constitute electoral fraud? NORDIS partner Källkritikbyrån examine a few examples with political scientists.
“It’s voter fraud,” says Malmölistan party leader Nils Littorin as he walks around looking for his party’s ballot papers at a polling station. The video, posted on X two weeks ago, has been viewed nearly 350,000 times.
Video on X on 26 August.
“It’s probably some private individual who took the ballot papers,” one person says in the comments.
Nils Littorin replies: “Damn it, that’s electoral fraud just the same. It doesn’t matter WHO does it. Keep fighting to defend the fraud.”
Since early voting began this year, there have been several claims of electoral fraud on social media. Among other things, several small parties have posted videos in which election officials are accused of failing to put out ballot papers for all parties in the screened-off areas. Others have reported being turned away when they tried to vote while wearing clothing displaying political propaganda.
So what are the rules? NORDIS partner Källkritikbyrån go through the cases with Jan Teorell, professor of political science at Stockholm University, and John Högström, associate professor of political science at Mid Sweden University in Östersund.
Are missing ballot papers electoral fraud?
– Broadly speaking, the Swedish election is a manual system – and that is one of its strengths. It is difficult to hack or sabotage the election from the outside, says political scientist Jan Teorell.
If ballot papers are missing, is that electoral fraud?
– It happens that voters take all the ballot papers for a party they do not like. There will always be individual incidents like these, and there have been cases where votes have gone missing during transport from early voting locations. But there is nothing to indicate that anything like this is happening with the intention of producing a particular outcome, which means it does not fall under the definition of fraud.
Post on X on 27 August.
If the researchers were to identify one part of the Swedish electoral system as particularly vulnerable, it would be the system concerning ballot papers – and this is also the part that has been subjected to various forms of criticism and allegations of electoral fraud on social media.
In a 2022 study, around 40 percent of the approximately 7,000 election officials surveyed had noticed some form of sabotage targeting ballot-paper displays.
– Ballot papers disappeared, were rearranged and so on. The purpose is probably to make it more difficult to vote for certain parties, which is naturally a serious democratic problem, says election researcher John Högström, one of the authors of the study.
Comment on Facebook on 5 September.
Even more, around 45 percent, said that voters had at some point reported that ballot papers for the party they intended to vote for were missing.
Several of the smaller parties have lodged complaints and posted videos in which they confront election officials. Most of these concern incidents from the period when early voting began in August.
In one of the videos circulated online, a person from the party Medborgerlig samling points out to election officials that the party’s ballot papers for the regional council are missing from one of the displays.
Video on Facebook on 3 September.
Kristna familjepartiet has published a video from a voting location with the text: “Electoral fraud or electoral influence in Botkyrka”, in which a man complains about missing ballot papers. The post has been viewed more than 114,000 times.
Video on Facebook on 27 August.
Representatives of Ambition Sverige, the party founded by independent MP Elsa Widding, claim that ballot papers are being systematically removed.
Video on Facebook on 4 September.
Medborgerlig samling in Järfälla has taken the electoral fraud and cheating argument the furthest, stating on social media that they intend to report suspected violations of the election law to the police.
In some cases at the beginning of early voting, election officials defended themselves by saying that the ballot papers had not yet arrived. In Järfälla, for example, the municipality said that the mistake was corrected after fifteen minutes.
But that is still not how it should be done, according to John Högström.
As soon as the polling station opens, should the ballot papers be in place?
– Yes, absolutely!
You are not allowed to unpack them while people are voting?
– Well, the ballot papers are constantly being replenished. There are large boxes of ballot papers, and the election officials are very attentive to replenishing them as they run out.
Comment on Facebook on 1 September.
In the comments, there is a view that this constitutes deliberate electoral fraud. “I believe that election officials and municipal election committees have not been disengaged or ignorant of the election law, but quite the opposite. I believe this is happening deliberately. This is exactly how a takeover of power is carried out quietly (among all the other things we are subjected to),” a woman writes on Twitter/X.
The video from Malmölistan also conveys the view that this constitutes electoral fraud.
“We are documenting it, this is electoral fraud,” says Nils Littorin.
“It’s not that we are doing it deliberately. Now we’re going to put them out,” the election official in the video replies, referring to the party’s ballot papers.
Comments on X on 26 August.
Political scientist John Högström believes that election officials generally do a very good job.
– They are at the ballot-paper displays and check them – and if a ballot paper is missing, they are quick to come over and add more ballot papers.
Speaking to Sydsvenskan, Malmö’s chief election official Daniel Olsson says that staff replenish the ballot papers as quickly as they can.
– We are confident that everything is being done correctly, he says.
According to the chief election official, a handful of reports have come in from Malmö about missing ballot papers.
– Some reports came on the same day that early voting began. In one case, we had not yet received the ballot papers; in another, we had not had time to put all of them out.
He points out that blank ballot papers are available at the locations, so if a party’s ballot papers are missing, voters can take one of these and write the name of the party they want to vote for.
No parliamentary election has ever had to be rerun
If any part of the receiving, registration or collection of votes were to take place incorrectly, the incident can be appealed to the Election Review Board.
– The Swedish electoral system is robust; we can appeal if something has gone wrong, says John Högström.
After every election, the Election Review Board receives a certain number of appeals.
So far, no parliamentary election has ever been rerun, but a couple of municipal elections and one regional election in Västra Götaland in 2010 have been. As recently as 2018, this happened in a municipal election in Dalarna, when it emerged that a bag containing 145 envelopes with early votes had not been delivered to the election committee.
– Vote counting in Sweden is public. Anyone can go to the municipal office or wherever the votes are counted, and also to the county administrative board, where the votes are counted a second time. This also contributes to the security of the system, says Jan Teorell.
He says there may be grounds for appealing an election.
– And then you should do so. But you also need some form of evidence. You should not simply submit something vague saying “there is fraud”, as many people did in 2018, says Jan Teorell, because then the Election Review Board has nothing to act on.
Only three percent of ballot papers are used
The researchers interviewed by Källkritikbyrån also criticise the Swedish ballot-paper system. For the 2022 election, more than 700 million ballot papers were printed, of which just over 20 million were ultimately used.
– It is an enormous waste of paper, and it creates vulnerabilities. All the ballot papers have to be distributed to the locations, and you have to have double screens. That was what caused queues in the last election. It creates a bottleneck, says Jan Teorell.
Comment on Facebook on 5 September.
He and John Högström both support a system with one ballot paper per election (parliamentary, regional and municipal). Similar systems, with different solutions for preferential voting as well, exist in many countries, including Finland and Denmark. A government inquiry into the current ballot-paper system is also underway, and its deadline was temporarily extended until next year.
– A system like Finland’s, with just one ballot paper per election, would make things considerably easier. It would mean that election officials would not constantly have to go to the ballot-paper displays and check that the ballot papers are there, says John Högström.
Facebook post by the leader of Medborgerlig samling on 6 September.
Controversy over clothing
The Sweden Democrats in Åtvidaberg have criticised a voting location on social media for turning voters away because of what they were wearing.
Facebook post on 1 September.
In the video posted by the party, election officials can be heard reacting to a shirt bearing the slogan “Stop the Social Democrats”. The clip has so far been viewed nearly 60,000 times on Instagram.
The story attracted attention, and there were divided opinions in the comments about what the rules were.
Eventually, however, the municipality changed its guidelines following clarifications from the Election Authority.
According to the authority, voters may wear whatever clothing they wish when voting, and a voter wearing party-political clothing or symbols may never be refused the right to vote, Corre writesn.
Video on Instagram on 1 September.
Election officials who receive votes and assist at the polling station may not wear party-political clothing, nor may party officials do so. This complicates the issue when politically active people go to vote wearing clothing with political messages.
This is what the Election Authority’s website states:
Party officials must remove banners or other clothing or equipment that is party-political when they are present at a voting location or in an adjacent area. They should not remain there any longer than necessary to deliver ballot papers and check the availability of ballot papers at the ballot-paper displays.
From the Election Authority’s website
We specifically ask the Election Authority: what applies if you are a politician and have campaign messages on your clothing when casting your vote?
There is no simple answer to your question. Under the Election Act, propaganda or anything else intended to influence or prevent voters from making their choice may not occur at a voting location or in an adjacent area. The rule applies to everyone, regardless of whether they are politicians or not.
A voter may, however, not be refused the right to vote because of their clothing. The rules are based on everyone taking responsibility, and particularly representatives who deliver ballot papers and so on on behalf of parties, but they also sometimes require difficult judgements from election officials who are responsible for maintaining order at the voting location.
From an email from the Election Authority to Källkritikbyrån
Comment on Facebook on 2 September.
Difficult to influence the election outcome
The Swedish electoral system is very robust, the researchers Jan Teorell and John Högström conclude.
To appeal an election, you turn to the Election Review Board, which consists of six members of parliament and a lawyer who serves as chair.
– It is a completely different body from the Election Authority that then determines whether something has happened – usually a mistake – that means the votes have to be recounted or, in unusual cases, that the election has to be rerun, says Jan Teorell.
Teorell does not agree that there is more electoral fraud today than previously, as some social media posts suggest.
Comment on Facebook on 4 September.
One claim that has spread on social media, and which Källkritikbyrån has previously written about, concerns the Election Authority’s head of office, Anna Nyqvist.
In the comments on posts about the news that up to 500 early votes had been registered incorrectly, it was claimed that Nyqvist is a Social Democrat, something the Election Authority has already firmly rejected.
From Källkritikbyrån’s publication “Rumours of electoral fraud and Election Authority chief spread after voting problems” on 7 September.
We put the question to Jan Teorell: given the secrecy of the ballot (that it is secret which party you voted for), is it possible to find out how Anna Nyqvist voted?
– You mean whether it is possible to find out if she is a Social Democrat? No, not without asking her. But let’s say she is a Social Democrat, or let’s say she is a Sweden Democrat: what could she do to influence the Swedish election? The Election Authority is a small organisation whose main responsibility is to coordinate everything and then report the results on its website on election night. It is the municipalities that constitute the actual election organisation. There is nothing Anna Nyqvist could do, even if she wanted to, to manipulate the votes. She does not count the votes.
This is what it sounded like in 2022 and 2024
Discussions about electoral fraud were a recurring feature of Sweden’s digital information environment both ahead of the 2022 election and the 2024 European Parliament election, according to reports from Stockholm University and the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), says Andreas Önnerfors, associate professor of intellectual history at Linnaeus University and head of the Valkollen project.
– At the same time, analyses of social media and digital forums show that these discussions were largely driven by a relatively limited number of accounts, actors and media channels. They did not represent a broad popular voice. The research does not indicate widespread distrust of the Swedish electoral system among the population as a whole, but rather a visible and recurring online debate in which claims of irregularities and electoral fraud received significant attention.
The 2023 report “Did someone say electoral fraud? – The information environment on social media during the 2022 election campaign” from the Swedish Defence Research Agency.
During the 2022 election campaign, discussions about electoral fraud occurred primarily on X and Flashback.
The study from Stockholm University examined more than 5,600 Twitter/X posts and just over 1,200 Flashback posts containing the term “valfusk”. The discussion was dominated by a small number of highly active users. FOI’s analysis, “Did someone say electoral fraud?”, also showed that the electoral fraud debate was largely driven by a small number of central accounts and alternative media outlets.