The election day of the 2019 parliamentary election will be Sunday, 14 April 2019. The schedule for advance voting in Finland is 3–9 April 2019, with advance voting abroad taking place 3–6 April 2019.
Election and schedules
The most important dates for the 2019 parliamentary election are as follows:
- confirming the number of seats for each electoral district: 31 October 2018
- date for drawing up the roll of eligible voters (in which municipality each voter is entitled to vote): 22 February 2019
- date for submitting candidate applications: 5 March 2019
- confirming the nomination of candidates: 14 March 2019
- advance voting in Finland: 3–9 April 2019
- advance voting abroad: 3–6 April 2019
- election day: 14 April 2019
- confirming the results: 17 April 2019
- handing in and inspecting the credentials of Members of Parliament: 23 April 2019
The overall schedule for the parliamentary election in the Vaalit.fi online service. The schedules for election debates and other similar events are available, for example, at the YLE website.
Basic information on the parliamentary election is available online at Vaalit.fi. For example, you can check what a voting register is, what the current electoral districts are, how elections are conducted and results calculated.
Electoral districts
For the parliamentary election, Finland has been divided into 13 electoral districts in accordance with the county division. The number of Members of Parliament elected from each electoral district is based on the number of Finnish citizens residing in the electoral district six months before the election date. However, one Member of Parliament is always elected from the electoral district of Åland Islands.
The electoral districts of Kymi and South Savo were merged to form the new electoral district of South-East Finland starting from the beginning of September 2013. The electoral districts of North Savo and North Karelia were merged into the new electoral district of Savo–Karelia. The change was first applied to the 2015 parliamentary election. The objective of the change was to improve the proportionality of the parliamentary election by reorganising the electoral districts so that they are more even in size.
Election authorities
In parliamentary elections, the highest election authority is the Ministry of Justice, which has the overall responsibility for conducting the election. The Ministry of Justice coordinates the preparations for the election and is responsible for providing instructions to other authorities. In addition, it maintains and develops the election information system.
Other election authorities include the constituency electoral committees, central election committees of municipalities, election boards, electoral commissions, election officials at the general advance polling stations in Finland, election officials for at-home voting, election officials at embassies and Finnish ships, the Population Register Centre, register offices and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.