Swedish Populists Warn of Mail-In Ballot Sabotage Ahead of Elections

A picture taken on September 9, 2018 shows voting ballots for different political parties
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

The populist Sweden Democrats (SD) have warned over the possibility of mail-in ballot sabotage ahead of national elections on September 11th, claiming to have received a number of reports of incorrect mailings.

The anti-mass migration populist party say they have received reports that voters have received ballot papers from municipalities they do not live in and that they have begun an investigation into the matter, raising alarms over possible sabotage.

“It is important for our sympathisers and prospective voters to receive our ballot papers because there have been instances in previous elections that our ballots were not posted at the polling station,” the party alleged in a press release.

“The Sweden Democrats use two subcontractors who are responsible for packing the envelopes with the correct ballot paper. Since the errors have been so extensive, this is currently being investigated by the party as active sabotage,” the chief financial officer of the SD Lena-Karin Lifvenhjelm said.

“In previous elections, occasional inaccuracies have been found in the mailing, usually due to human error. But it is clear that this year’s mailings contain errors on a systematic level,” she added.

The party also noted the secrecy in previous elections has been “weak” and subject to criticism by observers in the past.

During the last national election in 2018, election observers at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expressed dismay at Sweden’s election system, with one observer going as far as to say it was “undemocratic.”

“In all the many election observations I’ve been on, I have not seen anything that comes close to how undemocratic the Swedish voting system is,” Danish observer Michael Aastrup Jensen said.

“It is just so far beneath anything remotely resembling European election standards, or anything we would allow even in Eastern Europe.”

 

The OSCE released a report on the 2018 Swedish national election later that year, highlighting privacy issues in particular.

“In practice, ballots are placed on a table or a stand, often in plain view of voters and staff present in the polling station, which at times might diminish the secrecy of the vote,” the report said, noting some areas had reported missing ballots, including those belonging to the Sweden Democrats.

Recent polling has put the Sweden Democrats firmly in second place behind the ruling Social Democrats, with the left-wing party expected to be the largest party in the parliament but unlikely to win a majority of seats overall — paving the way for a possible centre-right coalition.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.

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