PostNord ballot delays disrupted vote counting, election authority says

Delivery delays by PostNord affected vote counting in several Swedish municipalities, the Swedish Election Authority said after an initial meeting with the postal service, SVT reported.

More than 100 reports of problems have been received from municipalities across the country, Swedish Radio’s Ekot reported. Advance-voting ballots were delivered to the wrong places or arrived at polling stations as much as 10 hours late. In some cases, the ballots were unsorted when they arrived.

“Deliveries in a large number of municipalities have been delayed, and in many cases so late that it has had consequences for the vote count,” Anna Nyqvist, head of the Election Authority’s secretariat, told TT.

Nyqvist said the problems had not affected the election result, but had affected vote counting and working conditions for election staff. In some cases, turnout statistics were affected because ballots were counted late and were not included in their own electoral district. “That is not acceptable,” she said.

The Election Authority and PostNord will hold further meetings. Nyqvist said the authority had not yet received all the explanations, but that both parties agreed deliveries had been delayed and the consequences were unacceptable.