At least four individuals with ties to immigration-related gang crime were employed as polling officials in Stockholm during the election. In addition, a further 69 people who served during the election have been prosecuted or received summary punishment orders in the last two years. This revelation comes as several allegations of suspected election fraud and other irregularities connected to this year’s election are under investigation.

Nearly 6,000 people worked with the election in the city of Stockholm. Among them were individuals with a considerably heavier criminal record than what is usually associated with a position of trust at a polling station.

An investigation by Dagens Nyheter shows that at least four polling officials have connections to immigration-related gang crime. Another 69 have been prosecuted or received summary punishment orders in the past two years.

The role of polling officials is central to the election process. They check voters’ identities and ballot envelopes, receive the votes, and participate in the preliminary vote counting after the polling stations close.

Weapons, Narcotics, and Organized Crime

One of the four individuals with gang ties is a 20-year-old woman who worked at a polling station in southern Stockholm. She was prosecuted in 2024 for, among other things, serious weapons offenses and narcotics offenses after police found a semi-automatic pistol and cocaine at the home of her criminal boyfriend.

The woman was acquitted of these charges but convicted of violating the weapons law after eleven live military 9mm cartridges were found in her bedroom. The probation service deemed her unsuitable for community service.

Another polling official, a man in his 30s who worked during advance voting, appears in a large number of criminal cases, including narcotics offenses, assault, threats against officials, and sexual harassment.

The police have assessed that the man has a relationship to organized crime according to EU criteria and have described the activity as crime that “has a negative impact on the local community.”

Yet another woman who worked with the election was prosecuted in 2024 after nearly half a kilogram of cannabis was found in her home. She was acquitted because it could not be fully proven that she knew about the narcotics. However, her then-boyfriend and two other men were convicted in the same case for serious weapons and narcotics offenses in a gang setting.

The fourth criminal polling official was convicted as recently as 2025 for crimes related to drug dealing in a gang environment. The investigation included, among other things, encrypted chats about drug deliveries and large quantities of cash.

DN reports that the newspaper sought to contact the four individuals without success.

A Further 69 Polling Officials with Criminal Records

The gang-affiliated individuals are not the only ones with a criminal background who have been entrusted with positions in Stockholm’s election organization. DN has identified another 69 polling officials who have been prosecuted or received summary punishment orders in the last two years.

Among the cases are three people who have been prosecuted for use of false documents. One of them is accused of using forged high school certificates in an application to the National Board of Health and Welfare.

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One polling official has been convicted of bribery and two for disobedience to law enforcement. Three others have been convicted of money laundering offenses in cases involving fraud against the elderly using Bank ID. According to DN, there are indications of connections to organized crime in these cases as well.

There is at the same time no general legal requirement that a polling official must be free of a criminal background. It is each municipality’s election committee that appoints polling officials and is responsible for recruitment and training. In Stockholm, a polling official received SEK 3,600 as a stipend for their work.

Election Committee: “Not Good”

Eva Debels, head of the election committee office in Stockholm, states that the municipality cannot check candidates against any criminal record and does not have legal support to require an extract from the criminal records register, either.

– Of course it is not good that there have been people connected to gang crime.

At the same time, she emphasizes that polling officials work together with others and that the election office has not received any indications that the individuals in question caused problems at the polling stations.

A system with voluntary criminal record extracts could, according to Debels, be discussed, but at the same time, it could make it harder to recruit the thousands of people needed if individuals with serious criminal backgrounds were excluded.

– Now the election is over and going forward we need to discuss how to work with the recruitment of polling officials. Do we need better routines? Can we reinforce them in any other way?

Prior to the election, the election committee office had noted that a “relatively large number” of people who had worked at previous elections would not be returning.

This Comes Amid Investigations into Suspected Election Fraud

The revelation comes at a time when the 2026 election has been surrounded by several widely-publicized suspicions of irregularities.

The National Anti-Corruption Unit is investigating suspected improper influence over voting in Borlänge, following reports about the Left Party’s personal election campaign. The investigation has been linked to the 648 personal votes that took Mohamed Abdukardir Ali from ninth place on the party’s list to a parliamentary seat.

Documents from the Public Prosecutor’s Office have shown that three people were named as suspects in the investigation, even though the prosecutor stated that no one had at that time been formally suspected of a crime. Reports regarding the transport of voters and ballots with pre-marked names were included in the case coverage. A large number of appeals related to the Borlänge case have also been submitted to the Election Review Board.

READ ALSO: Police Source: The Prosecutor Was Uninterested in the Election Fraud Investigation – Was Hardly Reachable – Then Closed the Case

Stockholm city has also reported suspected improper influence in the election to the police. That report concerns the Left Party’s campaign in Järva and is partly linked to the newly elected MP Ilyas Hassan’s personal election campaign.

However, there is no evidence that any of the gang-affiliated or otherwise criminally burdened polling officials investigated by DN have tried to manipulate the voting, vote counting, or election results. The investigation concerns whom the city of Stockholm has entrusted with the assignment and what checks are performed during recruitment.