Sámi flag, pennant of Sàpmi. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Wolfmann, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Sweden is known worldwide for violating the rights and freedoms of the Sámi people, the country’s indigenous population living mainly in the country’s northern provinces.
This time, it was not possible to hold elections to the representative body of the Sámi self-government—the local Sámi parliament—on the first try due to a scandal involving mistakes in counting votes in the elections held on May 18, 2025.
It is now clear that a re-election will take place on October 5th according to the Election Authority. The reason for the re-election is 95 votes that were declared invalid by the Election Review Board.
The Sámi Parliament election was declared invalid after eleven appeals and is planned to be held again on October 5th later this year. The main reason is a mishandling of a number of votes, which the Election Review Board has now decided could have changed the result.
“There is a certain positive probability that these deviations may have had an impact on the election outcome, says Cecilia Persson,” lead rapporteur at the Election Review Board.
According to Persson, voter turnout was around 60 per cent in the last election and she expects that turnout will drop. But that is not something that the Election Review Board took into account when they made their decision.
“It is not something we should take into account according to these rules. We should only take a position on whether there were errors and whether they affected the outcome of the election.”
New Election In October
A new election will be held on October 5th.
I am not surprised, but what happened in Arjeplog was so serious that I was more or less prepared for a re-election, says Håkan Jonsson.
The Sámi Parliament will not give extra contributions to the individual parties for an extra election campaign, according to Jonsson.
The Human Factor
Jennie Granberg, chairwoman of the Sámi Parliament’s election board, believes that there was a mistake during the processing of the votes and that there is no need to worry that the error will be repeated.
“It is probably the human factor that has caused the error, and everyone can make mistakes,” says Granberg.
Granberg says that as long as everyone is careful to read the instructions sent out with the voting cards, the re-election will go smoothly.
“There are more postal votes that are not approved than these 88 votes in Arjeplog, so it is important that you are careful to read how to do it.”
Source: SVT (in Swedish)