The City of Stockholm has filed a police report regarding suspected undue influence during the election in Järva, following a widely discussed editorial in Svenska Dagbladet. In the article, several poll workers testify anonymously about incidents during early voting that they perceived as serious, including reports of pre-marked ballots and attempts to influence voters. Several of the claims are linked to the Left Party’s campaign in the area and to Member of Parliament Ilyas Hassan’s personal campaign.
Eva Debels, head of the Election Committee’s office in Stockholm, says the decision to file a police report was made after the election office reviewed the information in SvD. At the same time, she emphasizes that the picture in the editorial differs from what the city’s own incident reporting revealed during the early voting period.
She explains to Aftonbladet that it is the information published by Svenska Dagbladet that has been reported, not the original incident reports from the election organization.
– We have filed a police report about the information presented in Svenska Dagbladet. Whether it is correct or not, and if it constitutes a crime, is for the police to determine. The basis is Svenska Dagbladet’s articles. He has continued to speak with poll workers, and in this article, there are things that we have not received reports on.
The background is an editorial by Peter Wennblad in Svenska Dagbladet. He writes that he has spoken to several people who worked with or were responsible for early voting in Järva, including Rinkeby, Tensta, and Husby. According to Wennblad, the sources have long experience in election work and described incidents they claim to have witnessed themselves.
According to my sources, the election in Järva cannot be described as either free or fair. It was definitely not worthy of a democracy. ‘The worst I have seen since I was an election observer in Uganda, where a candidate bribed voters with rice and seeds,’ says one of the poll workers. Another estimates that a majority of all voters brought one or more people into the voting booth with them. Especially women. In many cases, staff did not have time to intervene against the men who accompanied them before it was too late.
And even though there were incidents involving other parties, the sources repeatedly point to one thing: the Left Party.
– Peter Wennblad in SvD
The article also includes claims that groups of voters received instructions on how to vote. In one instance, it is described how more than a hundred Eritrean women came together to an early voting station in Husby and, according to witness testimonies, received instructions from two priests. According to the article, the women voted for the same party and marked the same candidate.
In another case, a man is said to have repeatedly been thrown out of a polling station in Tensta after giving instructions to other voters and handing out pre-marked ballots outside the entrance.
A graying gentleman in Tensta seems to have made a habit of accompanying voters into the early voting station. He also tries to go behind the screen to help them cast the pre-marked ballots he has provided. He is thrown out several times. When one of the poll workers goes to Tensta square, they see the man. He is sitting in the Left Party’s election booth, wearing a hi-vis vest with the party’s logo.
A recurring theme in the witness testimonies is also reports of ballots being moved or hidden. According to Wennblad’s sources, poll workers on several occasions found pre-marked ballots among the others or on the tables in voting venues. Often, it was Left Party ballots marked for candidate number eight.
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Number eight is Ilyas Hassan, a member of the Left Party’s executive committee and newly elected Member of Parliament from Husby. In the parliamentary election, he received almost 8,300 personal votes, the second most among the Left Party’s candidates after party leader Nooshi Dadgostar.
Fraud. Straight-up election interference. Like the Middle East. A disaster. The election should be redone. The worst I have seen.
Peter Wennblad quoting a source in SvD
The editorial also reports claims that voters received instructions via mobile phones behind the ballot screen. According to testimonies, some had images or written instructions on their phones, while others reportedly made video calls to get help with voting.
According to Peter Wennblad, poll workers also reported situations where people tried to follow voters behind the ballot screen or otherwise attempted to influence their votes.
In one case, an elderly woman reportedly came to an early voting station accompanied by an employee from a municipal citizen office. The woman is said to have later stated that she received help with certain errands at the citizen office on the condition that she first voted for the Left Party.
However, the election office says that these are not claims they have received in the same way through their own reporting channels. Debels also says that Järva actually does stand out in the statistics for incident reports during early voting.
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According to Debels, the Election Committee has previously contacted party representatives when there have been reports of inappropriate handling of ballots. She also stresses that pre-marked ballots are not illegal in themselves.
According to Svenska Dagbladet’s editorial, Debels on several occasions had to contact the Left Party’s office regarding the situation in Järva. In particular, it had to do with Ilyas Hassan’s personal campaign, which, according to the article, ‘got out of hand.’
They also agree on the terms to use for what they witnessed. ‘Clan voting, electoral influence, and fraud at a level I have never seen before,’ says one poll worker. Another says it was obvious that clans and mosques controlled much of the vote, and that uninformed voters – mostly women – were systematically misled and exploited.
Peter Wennblad on the witness testimonies.
The Left Party: ‘Racist Ideas’
The Left Party refutes the claims and strongly criticizes Svenska Dagbladet’s editorial. Party secretary Maria Forsberg says the article is based on anonymous sources and contributes to the suspicion of people.
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‘This is a suggestive editorial with anonymous sources and which plays on racist ideas currently being spread by the Sweden Democrats and the Moderates. They call citizens’ democratic participation clan voting and refer to them as voting cattle. This is a suspicion that threatens democracy,’ Forsberg wrote to Expressen.
Complaints Pouring In
About 6,000 appeals have so far been submitted to the Election Review Board after the reports of suspected election fraud in Dalarna. Appeals are still coming in, and there is still almost a week left before the deadline to appeal expires.
Samnytt has also received two complaints to the Parliamentary Ombudsman (JO) against prosecutor Oskar Edvardsson, who was responsible for the investigation in Dalarna but chose to close it down in the middle of the election campaign.