A sealed box on the wrong shelf. That was all it took for 117 valid votes to never be counted in the municipal election in Simrishamn. Despite only seven votes separating two parties in the fight for a mandate, none of the municipality’s parties wish to appeal the election result. At the same time, the handling of the scandal raises questions. In an interview with Sveriges Radio, the election committee’s chairman is asked whether anyone was upset, while he refers to the secrecy of the vote as an explanation for why the municipality couldn’t openly inform about the mistake.

What was supposed to be a routine vote count after the election on September 13 has turned into a troublesome affair for Simrishamn municipality. A total of 121 advance votes were never included in the final tally. Of these, 117 were deemed valid. This means that 117 voters who exercised their democratic right to impact the municipality’s future did not have their votes counted in the official election result.

The mistake is particularly sensitive because the distribution of mandates in the municipal council is very close. When the Green Party took a mandate from the Centre Party in the final count, only seven votes separated the parties. The forgotten votes could thus potentially have affected which politicians will represent the municipality’s residents over the next four years.

The votes were found on the wrong shelf

The mistake occurred during the collection count after the election. A sealed box with advance votes had been placed on the wrong shelf in an archive and was therefore never included in the regular tally. When the box was discovered the following day, it was too late for the votes to be included in the county board’s vote count. The election committee’s chairman, Matts Karlsson (M), explained in an interview with Sveriges Radio that it was a human error.

– You could say it is the human factor behind this. Unfortunately, that’s how it is.

At the same time, he emphasizes that the municipality takes the incident very seriously.

– It is very, very serious and we sincerely apologize to the municipality’s residents, political parties, and others in the municipality for what has happened.

SR asked if someone was upset

In Sveriges Radio’s interview with Karlsson, the incident also takes on another angle. Even though the error could have affected the election outcome, the reporter chooses to ask about the emotional reactions among the election workers involved.

– Were there election workers who were upset by this?

Karlsson confirms that the reactions were strong.

– There were many tears and many curses and such.

Kept quiet about the scandal citing voting secrecy

But it is the continuation of his answer that further raises questions about how the municipality handled the incident.

– And then the problem was that you couldn’t go out broadly with this, it’s, after all, voting secrecy here and you have to be very careful about what you say on these matters.

In other words, the chair of the election committee cites voting secrecy as the reason the municipality couldn’t inform the public about the serious mistake. Voting secrecy means that how an individual voter voted must be protected. However, Karlsson’s explanation does not make clear why this principle would prevent the municipality from openly announcing that an entire box of votes had been forgotten.

There is a difference between safeguarding voters’ political choices and making administrative errors in the vote count public. No further explanation is given in the interview as to how voting secrecy could be jeopardized by informing about the forgotten votes.

County board: Very serious

At the County Administrative Board of Skåne, the seriousness of the incident is clear. Chief Legal Officer Jesper Jacobsson, responsible for the vote counting in the region, tells Sveriges Radio:

– Of course it is extremely serious when advance votes are not handled, counted, and included in the election result.

He explains that while individual votes can occasionally turn up late, he has never experienced anything similar on the scale now seen in Simrishamn.

– I have worked several elections and I have not seen this happen to this extent before. So it is very unusual.

According to Jacobsson, it is primarily the municipal election that may have been affected. Simrishamn is a comparatively small municipality where even a limited number of votes can matter for the allocation of mandates.

The issue of what will happen to the forgotten votes now lies with the Election Review Board, provided someone has appealed the result. The board may decide on a new count or, if conditions are met, that the election should be redone.

No party wants to appeal

Despite the extent of the error and the narrow distribution of mandates, none of the parties who responded to Ystads Allehanda’s questions intend to appeal the result. This emerges from the newspaper’s review on October 8. The Green Party, which gained a mandate from the Centre Party by only seven votes, is particularly opposed to an extraordinary election.

– We think it would be difficult to mobilize voters for a special election. An extra election would therefore have less democratic substance than the regular election despite the unfortunate error with the uncounted votes, says Caroline Hellström (MP) to Ystads Allehanda.

The party instead wants the 117 valid votes counted and added to the existing result. The Liberals’ Åke Andrén-Sandberg takes a similar stance and emphasizes that all valid votes should be counted in a democracy.

Despite this, the Liberals will not appeal either. Andrén-Sandberg believes that the forgotten votes would likely distribute roughly as the others and therefore would not change the party’s mandates. He also points out that a new election would be expensive and delay municipal operations.

– But, a new election would cost a lot of money and lead to a pause in the municipality’s political work for about half a year. With regard to that, the municipality’s well-being is more important than the party’s, he tells Ystads Allehanda.

The Social Democrats also refrain from appealing even though the party’s local strongman Andreas Sjögren finds it “sad” that an entire box of votes was left out of the count.

Schyman: “Not that many votes”

Nor has the Centre Party, which lost a mandate to the Green Party by seven votes, chosen to appeal. The party’s representative Carl-Göran Svensson notes that there is no way to know if the result would have been different.

– If no one appeals, then it is what it is. It’s unfortunate for those whose votes were not submitted, but whether the results would have been the same or not, we don’t know, he tells Ystads Allehanda.

Former Left and Feminist Initiative leader Gudrun Schyman, now representing the Simrishamn Climate Initiative, states that her party will also not act. She motivates this by saying it “isn’t that many votes involved” when just over a hundred local residents do not get to have their say in a general election.

The Left Party believes that the economic and organizational consequences are more important than the democratic aspects of the event. That’s what the party’s representative Håkan Skaneland tells the paper.

The Sweden Democrats have also decided not to appeal. The party’s representative Tomas Assarsson refers to practical problems in first appointing committees and organizing the municipal government only to possibly have to start over.

– Should we set up committees now and then everything has to be scrapped? That’s much of the reason we haven’t appealed. We hope and believe the Election Review Board can find an easier way to solve this, he tells Ystads Allehanda.

At the same time, Assarsson believes the mistake must be rectified. “Right should be right,” he says to the newspaper but has no other suggestion as to how this might concretely be achieved.

The Christian Democrats had not responded to the newspaper’s questions at the time of Ystads Allehanda’s publication.

Power negotiations continue as usual

Meanwhile, as the issue of the forgotten votes remains unresolved, negotiations over the political governance of Simrishamn continue. In a Sveriges Radio report on September 29, the municipal council chair Christer Rakei states that the established election result stands for now.

– Yes, while they are reviewing it or before they have reviewed it, nothing happens, so the new council takes office after October 15 as planned.

The Social Democrats’ Andreas Sjögren sees no reason to wait with the political work. He says you have to “live in the moment,” while the Christian Democrats’ Anneli Roshagen finds the situation “exciting” since three parties became roughly equal in the election.

Thus, it is a municipal council whose mandate distribution could potentially have been affected by the forgotten votes that now forms the basis for negotiations on the municipality’s future leadership.

Voters’ votes risk remaining uncounted

The county board confirmed the election result on September 25, without the 117 valid advance votes. When Ystads Allehanda published its review on October 8, the time to appeal had passed, and none of the parties contacted had submitted an appeal.

However, this does not mean the issue is definitively settled. Not all appeals had yet been registered, and it is possible that one or more private individuals have appealed.

The Sweden Democrats’ Tomas Assarsson has previously told Sveriges Radio he expects the election will be appealed, even though the party itself does not want a new election. If an appeal leads to a decision for a new election, it must take place within three months of the Election Review Board’s decision.

But if no one has appealed, the board will not intervene on its own initiative. The established election result could then remain, despite 117 valid votes never being counted. What remains is the fundamental democratic question of what a voter’s voice is worth if it can disappear from the election result through carelessness that none of the political actors wish to rectify.