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Election Special - Finland On The Front Line of Democracy
49 Plays1 month ago
Alex Iszatt interviews Director of Democracy Volunteers, Dr. John Ault, on the electoral interference in Finland's municipal and county elections, by Russia, held on 13th April 2025.
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Transcript
Intro
Finland's Secure Elections
00:00:12
Alex
Welcome to the Observation Podcast. I'm Alex Iszatt Now, today we're talking Finland elections. Now, when we think about Finland, we think it's one of the most secure democracies in the world.
00:00:24
Alex
But as they're holding both county and municipal elections today, there are going to be questions about interference. Now, someone who's going to give us a first-hand view is John, Director of Democracy Volunteers.
00:00:38
Alex
Now, John, you have returned from observing voting near Finland's Russian border. So what stood out most to you?
00:00:46
John Ault
Well, elections in Finland, as you said yourself, Alex, are very well entrenched. They've had universal suffrage here since the early 20th century, before the UK did.
00:00:57
John Ault
In fact, the second country in the world to get universal suffrage. And Finland, as we've been seeing in places like Ukraine, the Baltic states, it's got essentially a thousand mile board with Russia.
00:01:09
John Ault
And as you know, Finland joined NATO a couple of years ago, and there's great concern about the influence that Russia has over elections in Finland.
Media Literacy & Misinformation
00:01:19
John Ault
Now, although it perhaps doesn't hit the news in the UK, we've discovered that actually were talking to the Ministry of Justice today, there are people who run elections in Finland, and they've had something called a DDoS attack.
00:01:31
John Ault
DDoS attacks are ones where essentially international bad guys try and undermine the process of democracy by trying to down websites that are running elections within Finland. now I don't doubt no one's heard about that at home, but that's something that's been going on here.
00:01:46
John Ault
And obviously it's an attempt by Russia to try and undermine the way elections are run in Finland. So you're right, there's a great tradition of good, well-run elections in Finland, but the problem is there's now both internal but mainly external factors trying to undermine democracy within the country.
00:02:04
Alex
mean, you mentioned that, um of course, like the Internet misinformation that's coming across ah alongside the Russian border. Now, we do know that Finland does have a media literacy program for all the young people to ensure that they understand about misinformation. So have you seen anything ah around that has tried to ah inform and warn people about this kind of disinformation out there?
00:02:27
John Ault
Yeah, absolutely. The government does put out lots of videos, lots of explainers on how elections work. There's a very simple process to explain to people how to vote. Voting isn't difficult in Finland, though.
00:02:39
John Ault
We go to a polling station, put a cross in a box, pretty simple process. In Finland today they've got two ballot papers, which is not normal for them. They've got both, as you said, municipal and sort of ah council elections for the more general areas of health areas.
00:02:54
John Ault
But the problem that ah they've got is that obviously not everyone knows how the process works. um So, yeah, there have been lots of explainers to young people on how to vote. um And they seem to be going through. We've seen quite high turnout today, which, you know, in local elections in the UK is not something you necessarily see. But in one polling station a couple of hours ago, we were already at 50% turnout in the local election. So we're seeing quite big
Challenges in Democracy
00:03:16
John Ault
numbers voting. And amongst those people are lots of young people going out to vote.
00:03:21
Alex
which is obviously great. you know They are the next generation. But when we're looking at the age range, if Finland does have quite an older population. that Most people there are over 65. So they may not always see that ah information on the internet.
00:03:31
John Ault
Yeah.
00:03:37
Alex
And also people are kind confused sometimes. What does make fake news? What is misinformation? So do you believe that they are also trying to encompass like both sides, the young and the older?
00:03:48
John Ault
To be fair, obviously those older people do have more experience of voting. And you're right. so I mean, targeting explainers on the internet to me is a fairly pointless experience. But in practice, yeah, lots of people, there's lots of signage of impoverished stations explaining the process, but misinformation ah is obviously a major challenge to all democracies these days.
00:04:08
John Ault
And because Finland is so close to Russia, because Russia has the best interest in trying to undermine elections here, yeah, there's lots of online garbage trying to stop people understanding the process. And one of the things we're looking to do as an organisation is start looking that interference to see how we as Western countries can try and deal with it. But that's a story for another day because our people are only just starting to work on it.
00:04:31
John Ault
But it's a major issue for Western democracies because although you're absolutely right, external actors are quite often the major challenge. Internal access can also be a problem.
Voting Influences & Regulations
00:04:41
John Ault
Now, that can be a high level, it can be a low level, but essentially democracy depends on active participation. It requires people to make sure that they are listening to those debates online and on TV and radio and so on, and trying to discern the different arguments these days, the truth and the lies, is not always easy.
00:05:01
Alex
No, absolutely not. especially it comes to elections, you must try and find out what exactly is going on. i And so do you find then, looking at all of the elections that you've observed, and do you see any weaknesses that you've come across in this particular election process?
00:05:16
John Ault
Well, one of the things that we see a lot is women being told how to vote by men. It happens all the time in every observation I've ever done everywhere.
00:05:28
John Ault
And so if the question is what's the major problem is that People like me tell people like you how to vote all the time and in an advanced Western democracy that's completely unacceptable.
00:05:39
John Ault
In the UK a couple of years ago we got the Ballot Secrecy Act to try and prevent that in polling stations. But in local elections in a couple of weeks time I'm sure we'll still see people telling other people how to vote.
Election Process Improvements
00:05:49
John Ault
How do you deal with it? You make sure that places like Finland, other Western democracies have active laws that say this is illegal, you must prevent it. but Myself in a polling station today, two kilometers from the Russian border, saw a bloke telling a woman how to vote um in the same polling booth together. And because staff were very busy, this was that we saw about 60 or 70 voters in the period of half an hour, which by our standards incredibly busy.
00:06:16
John Ault
um The staff didn't have time to prevent it. So it's something that has got to be looked at across all Western democracies is how we make sure that particularly women, but it can be young people, it can be older people who are perhaps more frail and don't remember the process, how we can make sure those people are empowered to vote independently.
00:06:33
Alex
that's an interesting ah one that you're saying how busy it was that people aren't noticing as much because Finland is very aware of transparent ballots. They are really on top of it, potentially more so, especially more so than UK and its postal voting.
00:06:48
Alex
and So what could you advise, could you give as you're there to observe? And we do know that Finland does take on the information that it gets from democracy volunteers like you and observers. So what would you um offer the advice? How would we move forward?
00:07:03
John Ault
You're absolutely right, Finland very good elections, but ah my experience at the world says to me that anything involving people can't be perfect. So, yeah, what we do is we'll be writing a report in the next month or so, ah giving them advice on the things we've seen today. We've not looked at all the data yet, but once we have looked at all the data, we're conscious sort of things like, I was talking about family voting, some ballot boxes that don't look sealed, even if they are sealed.
00:07:26
John Ault
queueing for voters. you know If someone's got a queue for an hour, are they going to put off from voting? But also, perhaps a major one today is because it's a dual election, actually, is that confusing voters?
00:07:37
John Ault
um And will we see... we I saw myself some people voting on one ballot paper, not on the other, not understanding the process. It'll be interesting to see today whether they actually vote on the wrong ballot paper, because there elections at the same time. and And if that undermines democracy, that's obviously not good for Finland's reputation, but also...
00:07:55
John Ault
belief in their own processes?
Electronic Voting Risks
00:07:58
Alex
And they did have a discussion about electronic voting and that didn't seem to really be pushed forward. Have you seen any anything out there while you're while you've been on the ground that has been more of a let's do this next year, maybe an e-vote?
00:08:12
John Ault
Yeah, there has been, you're right, ah in the past discussion, in front of the introduction of electronic voting. and they decided not to because of exactly the thing we've been talking about, which is external interference in the process.
00:08:26
John Ault
I think it's fair to say that Finland probably won't go down that route, but as we see in America, a country that's embraced electronic voting completely, actually it's often big discussions about how those elections work and whether people can trust them.
00:08:41
John Ault
We only have to think ourselves about the previous election, the one before that, where there are big questions about the process. And it's something I was talking to US election administrators last year, is that in practice they have a challenge, which is in a ballot box where you get a piece of paper,
00:08:58
John Ault
you can actually see for yourself who's winning, who's losing and who's got nothing. In America, if it's all done digitally, how does a voter know no that that result reflects what they voted for?
00:09:12
John Ault
And I think Finland so far appears to have rejected electronic voting, but we'll see.
Closing Remarks & Resources
00:09:18
John Ault
You know, we don't know, ah but at the moment, paper seems to be safer.
00:09:24
Alex
Well, as you rightly say, though, when it comes to people, is anything ever safe? begged But before we go, because we do have to have a short podcast today, and can you let our listeners know where can they get the results of the election observations that you're providing?
00:09:39
John Ault
Yeah, well, we will put our report on our website within the next month or so. We'll be sending that report to the Finnish government to explain the things that we think they can improve, but also giving to partner organisations around the world as well, because any discussion about democracy requires other people to invest in it.
00:09:55
John Ault
And we're very keen to make sure that other countries, Finland as well, and our own, learn from each other, because that's the way you make sure democracy continues and flourishes.
00:10:05
Alex
Absolutely. And we will also continue to help with ah disinformation, keeping that to one side and making sure people get the most of of democracy because that's our future. Well, thank you so much, John. I really appreciate your time today.
00:10:17
John Ault
Last I wish. Cheers. Take care.