Swedish election 2010

[Gustaf]

And Feminist Initiative got local seats in Simrishamn, the home of the party leader, with almost 10% of the local vote.

Given than the women's right are well-avanced in Sweden, I suppose than this is an radical and extremist party?

I think they want to abolish marriage or something.

They want to legalize marriage between several people at the same time. Basically, take every conservative stereotype of feminists you've ever heard about and you have them.

Looking at local results across the country there will be hell to form majorities. SD holds the balance everywhere.

[Gustaf]

The Redgreen parties have taken clear stances - they will

1. not give the Sweden Democrats any position from which to influence policy
2. not support the Alliance in any way

(3. no longer obey the laws of logic...)

[MaxQue]

The English part of the Feminist Initiative website is funny.
They blame the "white, heterosexual, middle-aged man" for all the problems of the earth.

They sound like angry lesbians, to me.

[Shilly]

Woot! map done.


Larger version in gallery.

[Tender Branson]

Is there a re-canvass going on right now ?

http://www.val.se/val/val2010/slutresultat/R/rike/index.html

Because now there are 6063 precincts instead of 5668 yesterday.

http://www.val.se/val/val2010/valnatt/R/rike/index.html

I already wondered why there´s only 80% turnout in 2006 and only 82% this year instead of 84%, it seems like Swedes voting abroad (ca. 100.000 votes or so) or something else will be added today ...

[Gustaf]

People who vote from abroad or do early voting on election day (i.e. mailing ballots from the wrong place on election day) get their votes counted on Wednesday. They're called Wednesday-votes and can move a few votes around.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

They sound like angry lesbians, to me.

One of their leaders once said "Women who sleep with men are treaters to their gender"... so yeah pretty much.


A few observations about local elections:

1) M actually lose support in some of their strongest city councils.

Vellinge - 49,7% (Down by 17,7%)
Danderyd - 41,9% (Down by 8,4%)
Täby - 41,8% (Down by 11,2%)
Lidingö -  35,6% (Down by 7,6%)
Stockholm - 34,6% (Down by 2,7%)

2) Local parties seem to be doing terribly everywhere except in Vellinge and Gothenburg

[Gustaf]

The quirks in the election law apparently robbed the Alliance of 2 seats. Given how close they were to 173, once the Wednesday votes are counted the lack of mathematical precision might have cost them a majority, claims a professor in mathematics in today's paper.

[minionofmidas]

Not sure how that happens or how Sweden's law functions exactly, but a national Hare-Niemeyer distribution would give four fewer seats for S, one fewer for M, and one more for every other represented party except SD. (Which does mean two more seats, net, for the coalition.)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Not sure how that happens or how Sweden's law functions exactly, but a national Hare-Niemeyer distribution would give four fewer seats for S, one fewer for M, and one more for every other represented party except SD. (Which does mean two more seats, net, for the coalition.)

I'm not sure exactly how it works, but when the Social Democrats passed the law decades ago, they built in some quirk in the system that would benefit big parties (themselves) and disadvantage the smaller ones (everyone else)

[Gustaf]

It's a d'Hondt but dividing by 1.4 in the beginning instead of 1 (IIRC).

The problem is that large parties get too many seats from the regional distribution and the evening out seats are too few. So SAP get overrepresented from those seats.

[Hash]

Any idea as to why M lost votes in their strongholds? Who benefited from that? FP?

[Gustaf]

Any idea as to why M lost votes in their strongholds? Who benefited from that? FP?

Part of it was probably that M-majorities had pursued unpopular policies in some of those areas. In Täby for instance they sold out all public schools to private companies/persons, in some cases in shady circumstances.

Part of it was probably that big city voters (where M is traditionally strong) are more subject to campaigns and were more likely to vote tactically for C and KD.

On the local level FP was often the beneficiary though.

[rob in cal]

Are the Swedish Democrats not considered a coalition partner merely because they support massive immigration reduction, or for other reasons? Or to ask the question in another way, if a mainstream party all of a sudden became supportive of far less immigration than the status quo, does that make them all of a sudden no longer potential participants in a coalition party?

[Gustaf]

Are the Swedish Democrats not considered a coalition partner merely because they support massive immigration reduction, or for other reasons? Or to ask the question in another way, if a mainstream party all of a sudden became supportive of far less immigration than the status quo, does that make them all of a sudden no longer potential participants in a coalition party?

Short answer, yes. Because of immigration reduction. But it is also the fact that SD started out as a Nazi party. An established party could sell being anti-immigration with less accusations of being racist. We will likely see moves toward less immigration.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

2) Local parties seem to be doing terribly everywhere

If local parties in Sweden are anything like Independents in British local government, that is excellent news.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And Feminist Initiative got local seats in Simrishamn, the home of the party leader, with almost 10% of the local vote.

Given than the women's right are well-avanced in Sweden, I suppose than this is an radical and extremist party?

I think they want to abolish marriage or something.

Their leader came out in favor of a "male tax" that only men would have to pay, supposedly to make up for costs dealing with domestic abuse and rape. I think some other member in it also campaign to ban urinals at some Swedish university (because men being able to urinate standing up gave them some sort of feeling of superiority over women, or something like that.) Anyway they are indeed nothing but insane stereotypes and getting any seats anywhere is quite depressing.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Errors possible.

[Kevinstat]

It's a d'Hondt Sainte-Laguë but dividing by 1.4 in the beginning instead of 1 (IIRC according to Wikipedia).

The problem is that large parties get too many seats from the regional distribution and the evening out seats are too few. So SAP get overrepresented from those seats.

Corrected (I believe).  The "modified Sainte-Laguë" method used in Sweden and some other countries (divisors starting at 1.4 and then going 3, 5, 7, ...) is still better for the smaller parties than d'Hondt (divisors starting at 1 and then going 2, 3, 4, ...), although just a smidgin better between the first and second seats (3/1.4 = approx. 2.14 times the divisor for the second seat as the first in modified Sainte-Laguë compared to 2/1 = 2 times the divisor for the second seat as the first in d'Hondt, while 3/1 = 3 times the divisor for the second seat as the first in pure Sainte-Laguë).  If no party winds up with exactly one seat (which wouldn't seem to be possible with the 4% threshold unless a lower polling party won a local seat and the formula wouldn't seem to matter there anyway), Sweden's method would seem to yield the same result as pure Sainte-Laguë.  Not sure how exactly the subnational seats impact all this though.

[Gustaf]

It's a d'Hondt Sainte-Laguë but dividing by 1.4 in the beginning instead of 1 (IIRC according to Wikipedia).

The problem is that large parties get too many seats from the regional distribution and the evening out seats are too few. So SAP get overrepresented from those seats.

Corrected (I believe).  The "modified Sainte-Laguë" method used in Sweden and some other countries (divisors starting at 1.4 and then going 3, 5, 7, ...) is still better for the smaller parties than d'Hondt (divisors starting at 1 and then going 2, 3, 4, ...), although just a smidgin better between the first and second seats (3/1.4 = approx. 2.14 times the divisor for the second seat as the first in modified Sainte-Laguë compared to 2/1 = 2 times the divisor for the second seat as the first in d'Hondt, while 3/1 = 3 times the divisor for the second seat as the first in pure Sainte-Laguë).  If no party winds up with exactly one seat (which wouldn't seem to be possible with the 4% threshold unless a lower polling party won a local seat and the formula wouldn't seem to matter there anyway), Sweden's method would seem to yield the same result as pure Sainte-Laguë.  Not sure how exactly the subnational seats impact all this though.

Ah, thanks for the correction. I'm never going to convince my memory that it isn't d'Hondt though...

The problem, as I gather, is basically that there are too many subregions (about 25 or so), so many of them have few seats. The result of this, in combination with the 1.4 division, is that the larger parties take too many seats in the regional distribution. This is supposed to be compensated with the extra seats added at the end. The problem is that M and especially SAP were already overrepresented, even as a share of the total number of seats, from the regional seats. It's basically the same situation debated before the last German election, if anyone recalls that one.

[Gustaf]

A cute little SD-poster from back in the good old 90s.



Translation:

"Sweden wake up!
Problem: mass immigration.
Effect: poverty.
Solution: return trip.

Sweden Democrats

WARNING!
to Swedish girls!

Avoid unprotected sex with negroes who carry deadly AIDS!
Most preferably: do not defile your race, Your Sweden, Your family and relatives.
Abort only as a last resort.
Keep Sweden Swedish"

So, yeah, they're not coming from a great background or anything.

[afleitch]

And surprise surprise latent homophobia goes hand in hand for the SD with their anti-immigrationn rhetoric

[minionofmidas]

"fattigdom" means "poverty"? Lol. Never would have guessed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

massive ticket splitting between municipal and diet elections. In Danderyd (Chelsea of Sweden) Centre party got over 20 percent.

Insert joke about Chelsea Tractors here!

[Gustaf]

massive ticket splitting between municipal and diet elections. In Danderyd (Chelsea of Sweden) Centre party got over 20 percent.

Insert joke about Chelsea Tractors here!

There was a heavy swing against M in their strongest areas, conspiciously the areas where they have basically had one-party rule and probably been a bit corrupt.

As a side-note, it is apparently mathematically possible for the Alliance to take the majority with Wednesday votes. According to some math professor a strong V-vote in Dalarna might counter-intuitively do the trick. Some political science professor called it a 50-50 chance which I don't buy for a second.

MP continues to play coy. I honestly don't get it.