The election is approaching and early voting is in full swing across the country. At the same time, questions are being raised about how secure the Swedish electoral system really is. Those without identification can go to a polling station and have their identity confirmed by another person, without having to show any ID themselves. Samnytt visited a polling station to investigate how identity checks are actually carried out.

The possibility to be identified by another person was introduced with the new Election Act in 2006. Before that, voters could simply state their name and personal identification number to the election official.

Today, those who lack valid identification can instead have their identity certified by someone else. This has raised questions on social media about whether the system could be abused for electoral fraud.

In theory, two people—one of whom might not even have the right to vote—could claim to be a third voter, thereby voting in that person’s name. The vote is then checked off in the electoral register.

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The practical check only happens if the third person, whose name has been given, themselves goes to the polling station to vote. If the person is then told that someone has already been checked off in his or her name, the Election Authority staff told Samnytt that an investigation will be launched to find out what happened.

If the person doesn’t vote, however, there is no moment where it is discovered that someone has already used the name. In other words, it is possible to vote in the name of people whom you know will not vote in the election, without the Election Authority having any opportunity to detect it.

SVT: “Zero confirmed cases”

Despite the questions surrounding the system and the concerns expressed on social media, SVT has chosen to calm voters rather than scrutinize the obvious shortcomings that exist.

With the help of the Election Authority, the public broadcaster in August emphasized that during the roughly 20 years this opportunity has existed, there is no known case of the system being abused for electoral fraud.

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“Zero confirmed cases,” SVT concluded in its report.

At the same time, in another report, the public service broadcaster promoted the possibility to vote without identification, under the headline: “How can I vote in advance if I have no identification?”

This is how it works

Samnytt recently decided to investigate how easy it is to vote in a polling station by having an accompanying person verify the identity.

No personal ID needs to be shown. Instead, the voter gives a name and the officials check the information against the electoral register – then the name is simply checked off.

In practice, this means that the person standing before the official could in fact be someone other than the person whose name is on the electoral roll.

See our visit below and feel free to support Samnytt if you want to see more video reports in the future.