Voter turnout rate in parliamentary elections abroad increased slightly

Press release 41/2007
12 March 2007

The total of 27,399 people entitled to vote in the Finnish parliamentary elections cast their advance votes in Finland's foreign missions. The amount of voters had risen by 872 from the parliamentary elections of 2003 when 26,527 people cast their votes.

This year, the advance voting for the parliamentary elections was organised in 87 countries with the total of 233 polling stations. Voting was also possible on board certain ships, but these votes are not included in the ballots received by the foreign missions. This year, the total number of people with permanent residence abroad entitled to vote in the elections was 208,904.

As customary, the country with the highest number of votes cast abroad was Sweden, totalling 6,578 votes. In comparison to the previous parliamentary elections – when 7,781 votes were cast – the number of voters fell by over a thousand. The second largest number of votes, 5,134, was cast in Spain, where the number of voters had risen from the previous time's 4,642. 1,436 votes were cast in the United States 1,422 in Germany, 1,221 in Great Britain, and 1,144 in Belgium.

Additional information: Director Pekka Hyvönen, Unit for Consular Services, Legal Department, tel. +358 (0)9 1605 5739

Queues for advance voting in Stockholm on Wednesday(Link to another website.)