International observers to investigate Swedish election fraud

Chaos, bloc voting, pre-marked ballots smuggled into polling stations, and voters receiving instructions via telephone. The accounts from poll workers in Järva are shocking—and once again, they involve the Left Party.

Cheating. Straight-up election interference. Like the Middle East. A disaster. The election should be re-run. The worst thing I’ve ever seen.

Over the past week, I have held long conversations with several individuals who, in various capacities, worked on and oversaw early voting in the Järva area outside Stockholm. Not politicians, but poll workers—appointed by the Stockholm City Election Board. All of them possess extensive, solid experience. All have managed multiple previous elections in Järva’s vulnerable neighborhoods: Rinkeby, Tensta, and Husby.

The words in the introduction are excerpts from their accounts regarding the situation at the early voting stations where they worked for several weeks. Everything they describe, they witnessed firsthand. Some details they shared only with me. Others are documented in incident reports that they (and other poll workers) submitted to the Swedish Election Authority, as well as in daily reports sent to the Election Board’s secretariat.

Unfortunately, there are many more examples. However, there is not enough space to recount them all.

This article presents a few examples. Unfortunately, there are many more. However, there is not enough space to recount them all.

1. More than a hundred Eritrean women arrive in a group to cast early votes at the civic center in Husby. They are accompanied by two priests from their congregation. Everyone votes for the same party and marks the same candidate. The priests instruct the women on what to do. 2. A man is repeatedly ejected from the polling station at the Tensta library because he is instructing others on how to vote. On several occasions, he is caught handing out pre-marked ballot papers right outside the entrance.

3. In late August, there is a steady stream of early voters in Rinkeby. Many do not speak Swedish at all and have no idea how a polling station works or what to vote for. But they know one thing; they have been given a task, and they can say one phrase: "Number eight."

Ilyas Hassan, from Husby. A member of the Left Party’s executive board. A fellow countryman of theirs.

4. An elderly woman using a walker arrives at the early voting station accompanied by an employee from the adjacent municipal service center. When the elderly lady approaches the poll worker, her companion leaves the room. Just as the poll worker is about to place the ballot envelopes into the collection box, the woman suddenly exclaims, "Stop." She then explains that she actually wants to vote for a different party, but that she had needed help copying some documents at the service center, and the employee there would only assist her if she first went and voted for the Left Party.

5. A gray-haired man in Tensta appears to have made a habit of accompanying voters into the early voting station. He even attempts to follow them behind the voting screen to help them cast the pre-marked ballots he has provided. He is repeatedly ejected. When one of the poll workers walks to Tensta Square, they spot the man. He is sitting in the Left Party’s election booth, wearing a high-visibility vest bearing the party’s logo.

6. At all early voting stations in Järva, poll workers need to check the ballot displays several times an hour. Incidents occur more often than not. Ballots have been moved. Ballots have been hidden. And then there is the recurring issue: pre-marked ballots mixed in with the others—or left behind on the table. Usually, these are Left Party ballots, typically with a mark next to candidate number eight.

7. Poll workers—one source says it happened to them three times—are discreetly beckoned behind the voting screen by voters. The voters nervously whisper that they want help getting rid of pre-sealed ballot envelopes without anyone noticing, and that they want to choose for themselves who to vote for.

8. Remote guidance via mobile phones. Many early voters in Järva stand behind the voting screen with their phones. They pull up photos or written instructions sent to them to ensure they pick the right party and candidate. Others make video calls for help getting it right—though it is unclear who they are calling.

We will leave it there. As mentioned, there is much more to tell, and more to be found in the complaints and reports available upon request from various authorities. One of the poll workers I speak with believes these complaints are merely the tip of the iceberg, however, since reporting incidents required both time and energy—resources that were not always available.

One of the poll workers I speak with suggests that the reported incidents are merely the tip of the iceberg, as filing a report required both time and energy—resources that were not always available.

However, the worker emphasizes that many staff members did what they could. For instance, people arriving with pre-marked ballots were urged to take new ones. Yet, the situation often involved physically ushering out individuals who stood in groups inside the voting booths, or who shouted instructions to others in the room in Arabic and Somali. On several occasions, chaos, arguments, and scuffles broke out.

At the same time, there are limits to what poll workers can do. They cannot refuse to accept a person's vote, even if the voter arrives with pre-sealed envelopes, pre-marked ballots, or has clearly chosen a party based on instructions. Furthermore, fraud and violations are difficult to document; taking photographs or videos risks compromising the secrecy of the ballot. Staff authority is also limited to maintaining order inside the polling station—not on the street outside.

According to my sources, the election in Järva could be described as neither free nor fair. It was certainly not worthy of a democracy. "It’s the worst thing I’ve seen since I was an election observer in Uganda, where a candidate bribed voters with rice and seeds," says one poll worker. Another estimates that a majority of voters brought one or more other people into the voting booth with them—predominantly women. In many cases, staff could not intervene with the men accompanying them before it was too late.

And although incidents involving other parties did occur, the sources constantly return to one and the same party: the Left Party. According to Eva Debels, head of the secretariat for the Stockholm Election Board, the Järva area stands out in the reports and alerts received by the office during the early voting period. And the Left Party stands out within Järva—specifically Ilyas Hassan’s personal vote campaign, which, according to Debels, "got out of hand." On several occasions, Debels was forced to contact the Left Party’s Stockholm office and demand action.

She cannot say whether the party actually took such action. She primarily monitored the voting process from the office on Kungsholmen. However, the number of incident reports submitted by staff in the field did decrease over time.

My sources within the election organization all share the same analysis. The problems in Järva were largely centered on the Left Party and the Somali-language campaign mobilized to get Ilyas Hassan elected to Parliament. Ultimately, he received nearly 8,300 personal votes—the second-highest number of any Left Party candidate in Sweden. Only party leader Nooshi Dadgostar received more.

They also agree on the terms used to describe what they witnessed. "Clan-based voting, electoral interference, and voter fraud on a scale I have never seen before," says one of the poll workers. Another notes that it was obvious that clans and mosques were directing much of the voting, and that uninformed voters—predominantly women—were systematically misled and exploited.

"Clan-based voting, electoral interference, and voter fraud on a scale I have never seen before," says one of the poll workers.

However, they find it difficult to explain exactly how it was carried out. "In the heat of the moment, you’re focused on keeping things in order and making everything run as smoothly as possible—getting hold of missing materials, dealing with staff calling in sick. But looking back, I’ve thought a lot about what the hell actually happened. And that we probably should have closed the polling stations when things were at their worst," says one of them—though adding that even that could have been seen as interfering with the election.

"Should the police and prosecutors investigate what happened, and how?" I ask.

There is a pause before the answer comes.

"Yes," the person replies, "and I don’t want to be part of this anymore if things are going to be run this way."

https://www.svd.se/a/43a0Qq/skandalen-i-borlange-ar-bara-bor...

TL; DR There are allegations this source brought up which don't seem to have any official corroboration. TV4SE met with election observers, but I see no evidence any credible observers have said they will "invetigate" as no observers were sent to the election. The most ODIHR have said is that they would consider this when deciding whether to send observers in the future.

https://ledarsidorna.se/klanerna-valjer-partier/

The title is "Clans choose parties":

When the Somali form of parliamentarism meets the Swedish electoral system, both friction and synergies arise. It was not the communist party's election committees or voters who elected their candidates or members. It was the Somali clan logic, parliamentary tradition and electoral college which decided which Swedish parties would become platforms to channel their representatives.

The article is written by Johan Westerholm, he used to work for the Swedish state foreign aid organisation SIDA and as such has a lot of experience in these matters.

[ also posted in the other thread, here for completeness' sake ]