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A Model Democracy? The Quiet Success and Subtle Flaws of Finland’s 2025 Elections
25 Plays6 days ago
Finland’s 2025 local elections have been praised as “extremely well-run” by international observers, with high marks for accessibility, professionalism, and voter experience at polling stations. But beneath the surface of this democratic success story lie quieter concerns—issues like family voting, unsealed ballot boxes, and confusing ballot designs—that could threaten voter trust if left unaddressed.
In this episode, Matt Davis speaks to Dr. John Ault to unpack the findings from Democracy Volunteers’ latest election observation mission, exploring how even the world’s most trusted electoral systems have room to improve. What does it mean for a democracy to be both admired and imperfect—and how can Finland lead by example?
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Observation Podcast. I'm Matt Davis, the International Elections Correspondent. Today i have John Ault, the Director of Demoxi Volunteers on the podcast to talk through their report on the Finnish municipal and county elections that were held earlier this year in April.
00:00:26
Speaker
Demoxi Volunteers has observed elections in Finland since 2018, having observed presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections during that time. So I'm very happy to be talking through the report with John.
00:00:38
Speaker
to find out more about what's inside. Hi Matt. Hello, welcome.
Election Observation Criteria
00:00:43
Speaker
Earlier this year we released a podcast episode where you explained that when in the UK you observe that there's the correct signage, disability access and things like family voting.
00:00:53
Speaker
Are you looking for these things as well in Finland and are there any differences when observing abroad? Yes, it's a simple answer. so We do look for exactly those sorts of things. um And to be fair,
00:01:05
Speaker
they have the same problems as we do here. People do indulge in family voting where you see one person affecting another person's vote, whether directly overseeing it or actually just filling in the po ballot paper themselves.
00:01:18
Speaker
and We do see access issues, though lots of buildings in Finland, like here, are extremely well adapted to make sure that people do have access. And we do see all sorts of other challenges. But yeah, you're absolutely right. It's no different from here.
00:01:35
Speaker
But one of the reasons we observe elections in places like Finland is so that we can identify their challenges, but also see if there are solutions that we've learned here ah that they can use, but also if there are solutions they've found there that we can use here.
International Election Observing
00:01:50
Speaker
Okay. and Now, from a kind of observation standpoint, are there any challenges with observing in other countries such as Finland? unfortunately,
00:02:02
Speaker
That's a very complicated question and I'll try and answer it. Places like Finland are very welcoming to international election observers. They have specific rules that accredit election observers and you go through the Ministry of Justice that basically runs that entire programme.
00:02:19
Speaker
And it's very welcoming and very open and they welcome our reports and, you know, hopefully they act on them. Other countries are similar. The Netherlands are similar.
00:02:29
Speaker
um who allow international election observation they have it formalized through statute and we can go and observe then there are countries like ours where the rules are slightly different so it's formalized where you go to the electoral commission they credit you but they limit some of things you can do so for example in the netherlands and in finland you can assess the so-called tabulation part of the process so that's actually where they put the results on a spreadsheet
00:03:00
Speaker
And that's the bit that gets sent. Because if you think about it, that's the bit which actually matters for communicating the data to a central, you know, sort of puts a zero in the wrong place or leaves a number off.
Formalizing Election Observation Globally
00:03:11
Speaker
it can just That's actually the point at which it can be undermined. So we can't see that in the UK. But then there are lots of countries, France, Italy, Spain, where election observation isn't allowed at all.
00:03:25
Speaker
and except by big international organisations like the OSCE. And some, like Italy, don't even allow domestic election observation. And so you have the slightly surreal situation in places like Italy and Ireland, where an Irish person can go abroad for the OSCE and observe elections, but can't actually observe their own elections, which seems a bit contradictory.
00:03:44
Speaker
And then there's other countries, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, which allow anyone to go into a polling station anytime they want. It's an open process. Now, that might seem a positive thing,
00:03:55
Speaker
But one the advantages of formalising election observation through statute is that, by definition, there are then specific rules that they are accredited by that formalise its place within the constitution and the democratic process.
00:04:12
Speaker
And it's fair to say just because this process is open doesn't mean that every member of staff in every polling station across an entire country knows that. um So formalising it, and so it's in the handbook in a polling station, is a very sensible way of proceeding. So we'd encourage any country to have a formalised legal structure so that you actually know what you're supposed to do. And Finland, where we were in April, has that process.
00:04:37
Speaker
So it's much easier in Finland than it would be in, let's plenty of other countries. Yeah, I mean, but so it's very easy in Germany, but you go into a polling station and people go, oh, observers, what a shock. And they don't necessarily have the rules to hand.
Comparing Voting Processes: Finland vs UK
00:04:51
Speaker
to know what's allowed they just know the process open right yes yeah so we'll go into a bit more about what it is you're observing have you found any solutions from finland that might work better in the uk well one of the one of the things that we found in finland is one there's a highly engaged public um a lot of awareness of how ah they elect people and there is ah almost, I dread to say this in the UK context, come to almost an enthusiasm for the democratic process.
00:05:27
Speaker
ah And on paper, literally their process is supposed to be very easy. I'm about to come to that discussion a bit where you literally write down the number of the person you choose on a ballot paper. It gets stamped by an official and it goes in the ballot box.
00:05:42
Speaker
and
00:05:45
Speaker
I think Yes, there are things. I think one of the things i I think is a problem with our system is that some of the processes like voter registration is um not clear. But I think the biggest thing, because ah they have automatic voter registration, we don't.
00:06:04
Speaker
um But one of the things that I think is most challenging about our system is we've just and enfranchised a few years ago three and a half million voters who live outside the uk who are and uh entitled to vote now and get sent a postal vote well i don't i mean i'm not being rude about our postal system or those of other countries but it's not as good as it used to be when i i don't think anyone now gets two posts a day but when i was a kid you did and a first class stamp meant you got yeah don't tell zoos a bright man um um
00:06:42
Speaker
And the first class letter got there the next day without fail. Now, I'm not going to comment on the funding and the structuring of the organisation the post office these days, Royal Mail.
00:06:53
Speaker
But it's fair to say it's not as good as it used to be. And other countries are similar. So if you're going to send a postal vote, even if you send it earlier than you do a UK one within the UK, getting to New Zealand and back,
00:07:09
Speaker
within a 14 day period in a snap general election strikes me as being, I'm gonna use a kind word, optimistic.
Postal Voting Challenges and Solutions
00:07:16
Speaker
ah And that's a country where there's a good postal system.
00:07:20
Speaker
What about countries where there's perhaps a less structured postal system? I don't think we can reasonably expect to think that process is robust enough. And so you asked me the question, what did we find in places like Finland that could improve our system is, well, the UK has got hundreds of embassies, high commissions, consulates around the world. 1.5 million or thereabouts British people now reside in Australia,
00:07:51
Speaker
who are you know of which a high proportion are registered to vote in the UK elections. Now, what's the solution? Why don't we open up embassies, well in that case high commissions, to allow people to vote in person at a polling station?
00:08:07
Speaker
It'd be great for engaging the British community overseas with what the British ah government is doing. It'd be great to actually encourage people to vote in person because it's a more and structured and transparent way of voting. Postal voting is not an ideal way of voting. It's not supervised by members of staff.
00:08:27
Speaker
So I think that's one of the solutions and Finland does that and they open all their ambassadors. And if you next time there's a Finnish election, you can go and see. people voting at the Finnish embassy in London.
00:08:38
Speaker
And I think we should be doing similar. So yeah, that's one of the things we've learned in Finland that we could do for the UK, especially now we've enfranchised all these voters overseas. So think we're first going to take a quick break and then we might move on to discussing some of the challenges facing the Finnish system.
00:08:56
Speaker
Sure.
00:09:04
Speaker
And welcome back. So we mentioned some of the things we can learn from Finland, but what are some of the challenges that their elections are facing?
Challenges in Finnish Elections
00:09:16
Speaker
Well, one of the things that's increasingly apparent ah to all elections that we observe in Western advanced democracies, it's important to to say that Finland is an incredibly trusted, robust and effective democracy.
00:09:31
Speaker
And people have high levels of trust in it who are Finnish, ah citizens and it's good that they do. But nothing's perfect.
00:09:42
Speaker
And some of those are the problems that we see, you know, family voting, people not being able to access polling stations, people receiving assistance in polling stations from a member of the family rather than member of the staff. So the things that we see as well, and they're in the report and part of those are our findings.
00:10:01
Speaker
But there's also issues which, especially a place like Finland, which borders ah Russia, ah there is a deep desire from Russian influencers to try and undermine the process in countries like Finland, but Finland in particular on this occasion.
00:10:17
Speaker
So I don't know the technical context of this, but there's something called DDoS attack. And one of those was done on the Ministry of Justice um ah ahead of the election, basically because they hold the electoral register.
00:10:32
Speaker
Now, that's an attempt that they obviously have security services to deal with and it's something that is very almost impossible for us to observe in person in polling stations but obviously that's one of the reasons we also meet um staff and people around Finland to talk about the process because that's how we find out about those things and they're things that western democracies have to increasingly concern themselves with there are bad actors outside ah western democracies like Finland which are trying to undermine democracy
00:11:03
Speaker
And we have to be conscious of that. And some of those are media-based that we've seen in some countries recently. um And some of them are technical like this. And I think that's that's one of the biggest things that affects Finnish elections. But that's very difficult for us to observe in person during the electoral process.
00:11:24
Speaker
You also mentioned the simplicity of the voting system with just writing a number and then putting it in a box.
Counting System and Dyscalculia Concerns
00:11:32
Speaker
Are there any challenges that go along with that system? Absolutely. And this is actually our main recommendation. And please do read the report because i now I'm no expert in this. So please don't think this. But we think that the Finnish government should look at this.
00:11:47
Speaker
There's something called dyscalculia. Now, you've probably heard dyslexia. I have. But I looked into this because One of the things that's fascinating, and I actually wrote this down because I wanted to make sure I got the exact numbers.
00:11:59
Speaker
There's a little town called Pori in Finland where there were 339 candidates standing for 59 seats on the on the county council.
00:12:14
Speaker
So on this occasion, people in those areas had well there about almost 900 people they could vote for in an election. And You say, oh, well, you know, in ours you perhaps get three or four on a ballot paper for a local council seat. They literally can but vote for that many people.
00:12:31
Speaker
And now there are two ballot papers, which obviously is, and it's not confusing because one was white and one was sort of a purplish colour. And one was associated with one election. It was pretty obvious, which was, well, unless you're colour blind, I suppose. But, you know, these were two different ballot papers.
00:12:45
Speaker
And the challenge is that you've got to write down the number of the candidates support. Now, Just for most people, that's, wow, there's 800 people to choose from. And each party has a list and, you know, it's there, they all are.
00:13:00
Speaker
You see it but in the report, you can see it's a long line of of names and faces um and the number by them of the person you can vote for. But dyscalculia, and please don't think I'm an expert, but it's something we think the Finnish government should look at, actually means that people are but so-called number blind.
00:13:19
Speaker
So, and this affects apparently sort of like 5% of the population. So, so if the process is that you have to write down a number, I think they should look into how many people get that wrong.
00:13:31
Speaker
Because, mean, the counting process is extraordinary. You see literally 800 potential piles ah for people to put votes into. And I think that leads to potential problems of counting as well. But if the issue is that some people might be affected by that, there should be a solution for those people to resolve that. Because in the UK, and this, you know, we obviously have a very different system for electing local councillors. You just put a cross by the person or persons, because sometimes there are multi-member wars.
00:14:03
Speaker
um You vote for the person that you, well, with a cross. It's dead easy. Yeah. And if you don't You know, if youre if you can't read someone's name, there's also a symbol for each party.
00:14:15
Speaker
There are ways of understanding it. But in their case, it's literally just writing a number down in a blob. And then you're only allowed to write 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. one two three four five six seven eight nine They're the only things you can put on the ballot papers. You can't write down the name of the person you want.
00:14:30
Speaker
I think they should consider allowing that. Because the challenges that people have, I don't think we can assume just because we think something's easy... You've got to make sure that the process is as accessible as possible. And even though I'm no expert in dyscalculia, but I think it's entirely possible that the government in Finland should look at it and just see, by talking to experts, we've put a few suggestions in the report to see if this actually does affect people. Because if does affect people, then it might be excluding them, whether before they go to the polling stations,
00:15:05
Speaker
because it's too complicated, or in the polling station where they might simply make mistakes. So I think they should do some research into it. in You mentioned a bit about the counting system there. i was wondering if you could explain a bit more about that, because that could be a big point of difference between the UK and Finland.
00:15:23
Speaker
Well, you probably saw it from the look of my face, trying to explain Finnish counting is not the simplest thing in the world. But basically, there are just X number of piles. And as you can imagine, in a small town, some people literally get zeros.
00:15:35
Speaker
um in a polling station. But yeah, I mean, they just pile them up. And you I think in the report, there's a photograph of the counting process. And there's literally piles everywhere.
00:15:45
Speaker
And of course, in this election, it's more confusing because there are two elections on the same day with different numbers and so on. Now, in a presidential election, which between God and whatever, there are only 10, 20 candidates.
00:15:58
Speaker
By definition, it's much easier But in this context where the two elections on the same day, i think it's entirely possible that one, people make mistakes. Two, counting is incredibly complex. i mean, it's not complex. That's not true, but it's long winded and it's difficult. But I think it's just something where they should reflect it. But basically counting is is quite simple in a way because it's just piles of votes, but there are lots of piles.
00:16:29
Speaker
Okay, yes. And so who who does the counting then? Is it just kind of people and up who work in the polling stations? Absolutely. um mean One of the things that we find slightly alien in our context is that we have members of staff generally from the council or people that employed for the day who are civil servants, local government officers, people like that who run polling stations.
00:16:53
Speaker
In the Finnish context, it's parties who contribute to people running polling stations because there's a big resource of them and they'll contribute to um volunteers to running polling stations.
00:17:04
Speaker
As a consequence, the people in the polling station count the votes and send that data to the central authority, the council or business party, whatever, and then they sort of pollate them there. And that's how they do it. So it's counted in polling stations and the people in the polling station do the counting together.
00:17:23
Speaker
Okay, yes, yeah, that does sound quite alien, a very a very different system.
Role of Volunteers in Finnish Elections
00:17:29
Speaker
and but we We say it's a lot abroad, it's what lots of countries do.
00:17:35
Speaker
So in that sense, are they kind of protections to make sure the votes are being correct counted correctly, just the fact that you have a range of parties in each polling station? but but i mean, yes, ah there is no evidence to suggest that. mean, let's be honest, people probably make sure they get theirs, but they're...
00:17:52
Speaker
It's fair to say that the people in conversations get on very well. There's never any sort of difficulty, even though that those parties can be quite diverse. At least I've never seen any major difficulties. um And by definition, in our country, if you go to a count, you'll see people there from each political party called counting agents. They observe the process. And if they see an error, and they can not identify it. They can point at it and either we resolved or disagreed with them. The returning officer will act on it.
00:18:21
Speaker
In the case of Finland, the parties are actually doing that process themselves. They're sort of cutting out the middleman of those formal people, you know, the independent people doing the counting or the running a polling station. So they're essentially saving themselves some time and some people.
00:18:36
Speaker
So it's a very efficient way of doing it. And because they're all different parties, it sort of works. I see that, yes. So what do you think the main takeaway from the report should be?
00:18:50
Speaker
Well, one. On a blunt level, Finnish elections are very well run. They're very well trusted and it's important that people do realise that Finland is an advanced, effective and trusted democracy.
00:19:04
Speaker
um Despite external ah authorities trying to influence it, and it's fair to say they have a very robust process and it's good that they do. The weaknesses, I think, if but' and they're not enormous weaknesses, let's be honest,
00:19:20
Speaker
Every system has people voting in polling. I've never been to a polling state day in my life and not seen something go wrong. There is no such thing as a perfect election. In terms of people affecting other people voting, it's a lower percentage than we see in the UK. But the disadvantage of us observing a place like Finland is we don't get to as many polling stations as we do in a UK general election. So it's important to recognise that.
00:19:47
Speaker
But I think What we can do is advise people like the Finnish that, look, we aren't experts at medical, psychological conditions, but we'd really encourage you to think about accessibility of the process you've got and review whether there is an issue.
00:20:06
Speaker
Because just because you don't think it doesn't mean it's not true. And you should problematise an electoral process and go, OK, what are our potential challenges you? And if this does affect 5% of the population, this calculator, people should look at it and say, okay, is there a way we can accommodate those people who do have this problem?
00:20:25
Speaker
And the simplest solution to me strikes is being able to write the name of the candidate you want on the ballot paper. It's a simple solution. It may not be very helpful the counters because they might suddenly realize, my goodness, I've got 800 people to pick from here, but at least it allows the voters some latitude ah to get it right if they can't work out the number.
00:20:44
Speaker
Right. So just allowing a bit more flexibility in terms of what they allow in the ballot paper. And counters, I guarantee, will give feedback saying, please don't do that because we're there all night. But that's the back end of it.
00:20:58
Speaker
It's not the bit that matters, which is the voter actually voting for the person they wish to see elected. OK, so finish up then, in the UK, we have this election day tradition of photographing dogs outside polling
Finnish Election Day Traditions
00:21:12
Speaker
stations on election day.
00:21:14
Speaker
Are there any similarly fun traditions that feature on or around election day in Finland? Well I guarantee we've definitely seen dogs at polling stations in Finland. We often encourage our observers to send them to our WhatsApp group ah showing dogs in polling stations and we do see them ah regularly because just like here people like their dogs it's a good opportunity to take them for a walk on the way to polling stations.
00:21:37
Speaker
In terms of other things, some of the some of the um things they have are very different from our electoral culture. ah You know, getting people enthused about British election, I'm not going to say it's difficult, but ah it's difficult.
00:21:52
Speaker
adam But Finnish elections are very different. They vote on a Sunday, which is a good day to vote in a way, because people tend to be available. But on the Saturday, the day before, they tend to have almost jamborees in town centres, in town squares, where you have little sort of tents put up like, you know,
00:22:10
Speaker
I don't recall, but, you know, a little tent. ah And there's a table there, and the party's giving out literature, chatting to people, a list of their candidates. But also, people get given food. i mean, the amount of sausages you get given with onions and things outside in these town squares is astonishing.
00:22:26
Speaker
and But that's only part of it because I think, um I don't know the technicality of this, so please don't yeah expect me to know. But yeah one of the things we've got is there's also sort of like almost...
00:22:38
Speaker
not fairground attractions, there's too much, but we saw some folk singing in a couple of these places. And it's astonishingly good. And it basically tries to encourage people to be enthused about deb democracy.
00:22:50
Speaker
And that can only be a good thing. So, yeah, we see some folk singers, all sorts of things. And it brings a bit of energy and a bit of enthusiasm to the electoral process, which, let's be honest, has to be good. Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:23:03
Speaker
So I believe we have a recording of that folk singing. So we'll just take a pause and listen to that before we finish up.
00:23:22
Speaker
All right, then. Thank you very much for joining us, John. They're great, aren't they? They're absolutely great. They're fantastic. Yeah, yeah. It was really great. If you would like to read this report to get all of the details, you can find it in the reports section of the Demoxy Volunteers website.
00:23:38
Speaker
Thank you very much for listening. Cheers, Matt.