DENMARK - 5 June 2019 election

[Famous Mortimer]

Any chance of a grand coalition? It seems like the Liberals and Social Democrats are closer to each other than they are to their coalition partners on the issue of the day and they're not too far from each other on economic issues either. Knowing American left-wing activists, I also have a hard time in particular believing that the Red-Greens are going to be cooperative with a party as immigration skeptic as the Social Democrats. It would be weird though, there's a lot of grand coalitions in Europe these days but they're usually the polar opposite of what I'm proposing here, they're usually economically liberal, pro-immigration, whereas this could shape up to be a grand coalition that's economically moderate, anti-immigration.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Any chance of a grand coalition? It seems like the Liberals and Social Democrats are closer to each other than they are to their coalition partners on the issue of the day and they're not too far from each other on economic issues either. Knowing American left-wing activists, I also have a hard time in particular believing that the Red-Greens are going to be cooperative with a party as immigration skeptic as the Social Democrats. It would be weird though, there's a lot of grand coalitions in Europe these days but they're usually the polar opposite of what I'm proposing here, they're usually economically liberal, pro-immigration, whereas this could shape up to be a grand coalition that's economically moderate, anti-immigration.

There's no reason for the Social Democrats to join in a coalition with anyone, and LLR's musings about such a coalition were decidedly ruled out by Mette Frederiksen.

[BlueSwan]

Any chance of a grand coalition? It seems like the Liberals and Social Democrats are closer to each other than they are to their coalition partners on the issue of the day and they're not too far from each other on economic issues either. Knowing American left-wing activists, I also have a hard time in particular believing that the Red-Greens are going to be cooperative with a party as immigration skeptic as the Social Democrats. It would be weird though, there's a lot of grand coalitions in Europe these days but they're usually the polar opposite of what I'm proposing here, they're usually economically liberal, pro-immigration, whereas this could shape up to be a grand coalition that's economically moderate, anti-immigration.

There is a close to zero procent chance of this happening.

One could point to our neighboring countries, Germany and Sweden, as examples of this happening, but in both those cases the side that got the parliamentary majority had parties that they could not work with on their side of the aisle.

That is not the case in Denmark. The red bloc parties are all reasonably pragmatic when all is said and done. The red-green alliance have always supported social democratic governments and will do so again.

Also, we need to understand that while Venstre and Social Democrats may appear alike, they really are not alike at all. They are both pragmatic parties but with completely different underlying ideologies. A social democrat will typically feel more ideologically aligned with someone from the red-green alliance than with someone from Venstre.

[Diouf]

The Danish electoral system, part 2

As promised, here is the second part about the Danish electoral system. The distribution of seats among parties is explained at page 4. This second part will explain how specific candidates are elected.

The parties must choose their preferred electoral method in each of the multi-member constituencies before the election. The parties basically have to make two choices. Should the lists be open or semi-closed? Should list votes be distributed among candidates or discounted?

To understand the selection of candidates, it is a good idea to start out by looking at the ballot at the bottom. As a voter you can choose to vote for a specific candidate (a personal vote), or to just vote for the party (a list vote). You can vote for all candidates running in your multi-member constituency. The parties normally place the candidate from your nomination district at the top of the list, and the remaining candidates in the constituency in alphabetic order, but they can decide to rank the other candidates according to their own preferences.

The first thing a party needs to decide is whether it wants to use open lists or semi-closed lists. If open lists are used, the party's candidates will be elected according to the candidates' number of votes. If semi-closed lists are used, the candidates will be elected in the order defined by the party unless a lower-ranked candidate manages to pass the Droop quota. The Droop quota in a constituency is (total number of votes for party/seats for party+1)+1. In order for it to become somewhat possible for a candidate to break the party list, all list votes in a candidate's nomination district is counted for that candidate when using semi-closed lists. In the first picture below, you can see an example from 1994 when SPP used semi-closed lists. We are looking at Frederiksborg multi-member constituency, where SPP won 1 seat. The constituency had four different nomination districts with SPP running a candidate in each of them. They used party list, where Birgitte Husmark was ranked 1st while Margrethe Auken was ranked 2nd. The Droop quota was (17 498/2)+1= 8 750 votes. Margrethe Auken managed to get 9 635 votes, crossing the Droop quota and winning the seat despite being ranked 2nd. She reached this number by winning high number of personal votes in the three other nomination districts (1 114, 2 619 & 1 767 respectively) and receiving 2 372 personal votes + all list votes (1 763) in her own nomination district.
In this election, Red-Green Alliance uses semi-closed lists in every constituency except Bornholm while Tough Line and Klaus Riskær Pedersen use it in some constituencies. All other parties use open lists everywhere.

The parties who use open lists will have to consider a second question as well. Should list votes be distributed among the candidates or should they be discounted? If the latter method is chosen, the list votes will not be considered when choosing which candidates are elected. Only the total number of personal votes in the constituency will decide the order. However, if the former method is chosen, the list votes in each nomination district will be distributed among the candidates according to their share of the personal votes in that nomination district. An example can be seen in the second picture below from the Social Democrats in 2015. The interesting aspect is who will get the fifth and final Social Democrat seat in Southern Jutland. Troels Ravn received 5 891 personal votes across the constituency, while Christian Rabjerg Madsen received 5 201 personal votes. However, after the distribution of list votes, Rabjerg Madsen ended at 9 955 votes while Ravn finished at 9 569, which meant that Rabjerg Madsen won the seat despite receiving fewer personal votes. This was because Rabjerg Madsen received many personal votes in both his own nomination district, Kolding South, and the neighbouring Kolding North, which means he was awarded a significant chunk of list votes from both districts. Ravn, on the other hand, mainly won his votes in his own nomination district, Vejen, where he received most of the personal votes (and therefore also list votes), but he did not get a lot of votes elsewhere. So this method slightly favours candidates who manage to attract personal votes in several nomination districts as they will receive list votes from there as well. The logic being that if you managed to get 10% of a party's personal votes in a district, then your effort also deserves 10% of a party's list votes in that district.
In this election, Social Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, Christian Democrats and Tough Line (where they use open lists) distribute list votes between candidates, while Social Liberals, New Right, SPP, Liberal Alliance, DPP & Alternative only use personal votes. Klaus Riskær Pedersen uses different methods in different constituencies, while Red-Green use personal votes only in Bornholm where they run an open list.

[Diouf]

A couple of news from recent days.

Søren Gade, who helped Liberals to a great EU election with more than 200 000 personal votes, tried his best to stop the positive momentum helping the party in the general election. To a newspaper in Northern Jutland, he said: "Someone told me 'now you will become Løkke's best friend for the next nine days'. But I can ensure you that I'm not going to hang on banners with Lars Løkke. I'm looking after my own credibility". This was of course widely cited in national newspapers. It shows the strained relationships in the party that Gade in this way attacks Løkke's credibility and basically tells his voters that it's fine if they don't support the party under his reign.

Christian Democrat leader-on-leave Stig Grenov announced that he is resigning permanently as leader, and that the party will elect a new leader on their conference in October. He recommends current deputy leader, and substitute leader in the election, Isabella Arendt to take over.

SPP has had a few days of poor media coverage after Karsten Hønge decided not take his seat in the European Parliament despite being elected. I was fairly certain that he wouldn't take up the seat, five years alongside Margrete Auken would be tough for him, both in terms of their personal differences and because Auken is on the furthest pro-EU, green side of the party while Hønge is quite Eurosceptic with a worker/trade union background. But he didn't state clearly beforehand that he wouldn't take up the seat, which has been the main reason for the criticism.

Klaus Riskær Pedersen has proposed a break with the universal benefits, which even rich people gets. He wants to take away the state pension from the richest 5-7% of pensioners, as well as taking away the child benefits from those with high incomes. Along with a tax on bond profits, he will make a green climate fund with 10 billion DKK a year (1.34 billion euro)

[bigic]

Søren Gade, who helped Liberals to a great EU election with more than 200 000 personal votes, tried his best to stop the positive momentum helping the party in the general election. To a newspaper in Northern Jutland, he said: "Someone told me 'now you will become Løkke's best friend for the next nine days'. But I can ensure you that I'm not going to hang on banners with Lars Løkke. I'm looking after my own credibility". This was of course widely cited in national newspapers. It shows the strained relationships in the party that Gade in this way attacks Løkke's credibility and basically tells his voters that it's fine if they don't support the party under his reign.

Where is he positioned ideologically compared to the other party members?

[Diouf]

Søren Gade, who helped Liberals to a great EU election with more than 200 000 personal votes, tried his best to stop the positive momentum helping the party in the general election. To a newspaper in Northern Jutland, he said: "Someone told me 'now you will become Løkke's best friend for the next nine days'. But I can ensure you that I'm not going to hang on banners with Lars Løkke. I'm looking after my own credibility". This was of course widely cited in national newspapers. It shows the strained relationships in the party that Gade in this way attacks Løkke's credibility and basically tells his voters that it's fine if they don't support the party under his reign.

Where is he positioned ideologically compared to the other party members?

Generally, he's seen as being on the same page as the right-wing in the party, personified by Minister of Immigration Inger Støjberg. This means a tougher line on immigration and law & order, more focus on the conditions for fishers and farmers than increased environmental regulation or saving wolves and a focus on the problems with EU (in terms of immigration, welfare benefits for central and eastern europeans, bureaucracy etc.) over a clear-cut pro-EU stance. Gade and Støjberg has proposed internally that the party moves from ALDE to EPP to get away from the most federal-inclined members in ALDE.
During the leadership crisis in the Liberals in 2014, Søren Gade played a quite significant shadow role. Løkke and his allies used Søren Gade, with Gade's accept, as a threat to Kristian Jensen; if you force Løkke to resign, Gade will run against you. However, the relationship with Løkke is, as the recent quote indicates, not very rosy. Suprisingly, Gade didn't become a minister after the 2015 election, instead he became parliamentary group leader. It is not entirely clear why that didn't happen. Perhaps because Løkke saw Gade as too big of a threat, if the popular trustworthy Jutlandic figure was given a prominent role, just after the Liberals taking a big hit, partly due to Løkke's terrible personal credibility. Perhaps also a peace agreement with Kristian Jensen to keep Gade out or at least away from a top job (there are rumours that Gade rejected a less important minister job).
While Gade is still popular among voters, he seems to have less friends internally in the party. He has been disloyal to the party line too much and accused of becoming too arrogant and repeatedly lashing out at opponents.
It will be interesting to see how things will play out after the expected defeat. Will Løkke resign voluntarily? And if not, who will force him to step down? And will there be a genuine leadership battle to replace him or will Kristian Jensen be able to make deals with enough of the party to avoid it? Gade is probably not a leadership contender anymore, but does Støjberg want to make a bid for it?

[Diouf]

Lars Løkke campaigning in Faroe Islands today. According to one of his critics, current MP Magni Arge from the socialist pro-independence Republic, it is the first time since Stauning (PM 1924-26 & 1929-1942) that an incumbent PM went to the Faroe Islands to campaign. In 2015, all four seats from Faroe Island and Greenland went to parties supporting the Red Bloc (initially), although Greenlandic MP Aleqa Hammond ended up supporting the government after being made chair of the Greenlandic Committee. This time it looks like, the Liberal's sister party, the Union Party will at least win one Blue seat in the North Atlantic.

[Diouf]

Tomorrow, one of the two main TV channels will broadcast the final duel between Mette Frederiksen and Lars Løkke Rasmussen. And then Monday and Tuesday, there will be the final party leader debates, one on each of the two major channels.

[Famous Mortimer]

Søren Gade, who helped Liberals to a great EU election with more than 200 000 personal votes, tried his best to stop the positive momentum helping the party in the general election. To a newspaper in Northern Jutland, he said: "Someone told me 'now you will become Løkke's best friend for the next nine days'. But I can ensure you that I'm not going to hang on banners with Lars Løkke. I'm looking after my own credibility". This was of course widely cited in national newspapers. It shows the strained relationships in the party that Gade in this way attacks Løkke's credibility and basically tells his voters that it's fine if they don't support the party under his reign.

Where is he positioned ideologically compared to the other party members?

Generally, he's seen as being on the same page as the right-wing in the party, personified by Minister of Immigration Inger Støjberg. This means a tougher line on immigration and law & order, more focus on the conditions for fishers and farmers than increased environmental regulation or saving wolves and a focus on the problems with EU (in terms of immigration, welfare benefits for central and eastern europeans, bureaucracy etc.) over a clear-cut pro-EU stance. Gade and Støjberg has proposed internally that the party moves from ALDE to EPP to get away from the most federal-inclined members in ALDE.
During the leadership crisis in the Liberals in 2014, Søren Gade played a quite significant shadow role. Løkke and his allies used Søren Gade, with Gade's accept, as a threat to Kristian Jensen; if you force Løkke to resign, Gade will run against you. However, the relationship with Løkke is, as the recent quote indicates, not very rosy. Suprisingly, Gade didn't become a minister after the 2015 election, instead he became parliamentary group leader. It is not entirely clear why that didn't happen. Perhaps because Løkke saw Gade as too big of a threat, if the popular trustworthy Jutlandic figure was given a prominent role, just after the Liberals taking a big hit, partly due to Løkke's terrible personal credibility. Perhaps also a peace agreement with Kristian Jensen to keep Gade out or at least away from a top job (there are rumours that Gade rejected a less important minister job).
While Gade is still popular among voters, he seems to have less friends internally in the party. He has been disloyal to the party line too much and accused of becoming too arrogant and repeatedly lashing out at opponents.
It will be interesting to see how things will play out after the expected defeat. Will Løkke resign voluntarily? And if not, who will force him to step down? And will there be a genuine leadership battle to replace him or will Kristian Jensen be able to make deals with enough of the party to avoid it? Gade is probably not a leadership contender anymore, but does Støjberg want to make a bid for it?

If the leader of the Social Democrats favors limiting "non-Western immigration" and the PM is to the right of her, how could he be to the right of the PM on immigration? What does that look like? Is he in favor of repatriation?

I thought somebody said the current PM was moderating his economic stances, so if anything, I would have imagined someone on the PM's right would be on the right of him economically, is that not the case?

[Diouf]

Søren Gade, who helped Liberals to a great EU election with more than 200 000 personal votes, tried his best to stop the positive momentum helping the party in the general election. To a newspaper in Northern Jutland, he said: "Someone told me 'now you will become Løkke's best friend for the next nine days'. But I can ensure you that I'm not going to hang on banners with Lars Løkke. I'm looking after my own credibility". This was of course widely cited in national newspapers. It shows the strained relationships in the party that Gade in this way attacks Løkke's credibility and basically tells his voters that it's fine if they don't support the party under his reign.

Where is he positioned ideologically compared to the other party members?

Generally, he's seen as being on the same page as the right-wing in the party, personified by Minister of Immigration Inger Støjberg. This means a tougher line on immigration and law & order, more focus on the conditions for fishers and farmers than increased environmental regulation or saving wolves and a focus on the problems with EU (in terms of immigration, welfare benefits for central and eastern europeans, bureaucracy etc.) over a clear-cut pro-EU stance. Gade and Støjberg has proposed internally that the party moves from ALDE to EPP to get away from the most federal-inclined members in ALDE.
During the leadership crisis in the Liberals in 2014, Søren Gade played a quite significant shadow role. Løkke and his allies used Søren Gade, with Gade's accept, as a threat to Kristian Jensen; if you force Løkke to resign, Gade will run against you. However, the relationship with Løkke is, as the recent quote indicates, not very rosy. Suprisingly, Gade didn't become a minister after the 2015 election, instead he became parliamentary group leader. It is not entirely clear why that didn't happen. Perhaps because Løkke saw Gade as too big of a threat, if the popular trustworthy Jutlandic figure was given a prominent role, just after the Liberals taking a big hit, partly due to Løkke's terrible personal credibility. Perhaps also a peace agreement with Kristian Jensen to keep Gade out or at least away from a top job (there are rumours that Gade rejected a less important minister job).
While Gade is still popular among voters, he seems to have less friends internally in the party. He has been disloyal to the party line too much and accused of becoming too arrogant and repeatedly lashing out at opponents.
It will be interesting to see how things will play out after the expected defeat. Will Løkke resign voluntarily? And if not, who will force him to step down? And will there be a genuine leadership battle to replace him or will Kristian Jensen be able to make deals with enough of the party to avoid it? Gade is probably not a leadership contender anymore, but does Støjberg want to make a bid for it?

If the leader of the Social Democrats favors limiting "non-Western immigration" and the PM is to the right of her, how could he be to the right of the PM on immigration? What does that look like? Is he in favor of repatriation?

I thought somebody said the current PM was moderating his economic stances, so if anything, I would have imagined someone on the PM's right would be on the right of him economically, is that not the case?

Well, an important dividing line in immigration policy is whether Denmark should follow UN conventions and ECHR, which means that everyone has a right to apply for asylum at the border and makes it difficult to deport criminal immigrants. DPP, New Right and Tough Line are clear that Denmark should not follow these, while both Liberal Alliance and Conservatives have previously made suggestions that would require not following them, at least temporarily. These suggestions have been less common after entering government. However, both Liberals and Social Democrats are so far quite clear that Denmark should follow these conventions. The Social Democrats probably now largely agree with Liberals that policies should be as tough as possible within the conventions, which is why their policy differences are no longer that big. Social Democrats have some difficulties with accepting too low benefits for immigrants, so there might be some loosening of policy here (mainly aimed at children), but on the other hand they will probably have less problems than the Liberals in forcing immigrant children to enter day care, kindergarten etc and increasing removal of children from unsuited parents. In terms of repatriation, the Blue Bloc and Social Democrats made an agreement before the election to put a bigger emphasis on returns for refugees, but only the limited changes that can be made within conventions.

Gade and Støjberg have not suggested leaving conventions in public, but one would think they would be more open to the idea than most other Liberals. The public difference is mainly in terms of rhetoric. Gade emphasized protecting the EU border as the most important thing, while other Liberal candidates talked a lot about climate and free markets. The Gade/Støjberg wing is more willing to carry through symbolic policies which restricts liberties, while others in the Liberals have had significant ideological difficulties with that.

On economy, the divisions have been less obvious in the party in recent years. Those urban Liberals which leans left on immigration are probably often more likely to support broad tax cuts, also for top incomes, but would favour tougher environmental standards. Gade and Støjberg are probably more comfortable than them with the centrist economic policies the party is proposing in this campaign.

[Diouf]

The Løkke-Frederiksen debate was quite good, with most commentators suggesting a slight Løkke victory, but nothing significant. Frederiksen had a weird stunt with bringing a small part from a car, and saying that it's price would only increase 0,5 DKK with her tax increases. A presentation she really failed to deliver. Other than that it was fairly equal. Frederiksen still quite vague on some points, but fairly offensive on welfare spending.

The first party leader debate by state broadcaster DR was terrible. Starting out with 25 minutes discussing cigarette tariffs, and nothing about the wider health care system. Then another climate debate with very few concrete issues and a lot of hot air. There was some sting in the immigration debate, but a poor presenter failed to make it come to fruition. In the end, we reached the bottom when the presenter made a terribly unfunny 'improv comedy' about who were willing to form a majority with whom. Klaus Riskær Pedersen had his best performance so far with some significant statements, he beautifully weaved a story about the sadness of being behind closed doors in his own prison sentence to make the point that children should not be behind locked doors in the centers for rejected asylum seekers. Paludan was very visible again, and made his points quite clearly with several other party leaders engaging with them. Thulelsen Dahl didn't get much of a role in the immigration debate, but did get some tough attacks in on the red parties who wants to make life much tougher for farmers with climate regulation. Mette Frederiksen was vaguer than ever, but she just needs to avoid major blunders in the final days.

[DavidB.]

Prediction time:

S 28.5%
V 17%
DF 10%
SF 9%
EL 8.5%
RV 8.5%
C 6%
LA 3.5%
Å 2.5%
NB 2.5%
SK 2%
K 1.5%
E 0.5%

Reds: 57%
Blues: 43%

Turnout 89%

[Diouf]

Given the Social Democrat's rightward shift on migration, will ethnic voters/"ghetto" residents still vote for them, or will they either defect or not bother voting? (None of the other parties seem like ideal outfits for that niche). Heck, could Denmark ever see a DENK style formation, given the low threshold and persistent ethnic strife?

It will be interesting to see. I haven't been able to find any polling since their shift. At the 2017 local elections, they still seemed to dominate in the immigration-heavy areas. SPP and Red-Green Alliance are probably the parties one would normally think of as potentially attracting some of these voters, but the Alternative seems to be doing it most visibly. The previous leader of the immigrant party National Party, Kashif Ahmad, is running for the party in Copenhagen. And I would think he would be among their most-voted candidates, although they are likely to decline to one seat for party leader Uffe Elbæk. Sikandar Siddique, who was involved with hardline islamists Hizb ut-Tahrir in the early 00es, is also running for the Alternative in Copenhagen Environs. And it was very weird when party leader Uffe Elbæk and EP lead candidate Rasmus Nordqvist, who are normally very focused on gender equality in debate panels etc., joined Siddique for a male-only party event in the ghetto in Albertslund. So we could potentially see scandals similar to the ones regarding the Greens in Sweden. Since the party does not have a lot of notable candidates in many areas, it is not unthinkable that one of their new immigrant candidates could do a Leila Ali-Elmi and be elected MP in an upset.

The National Party never really got off the ground. Perhaps due to poor organization, because Ahmad was from a small Muslim ahmadiyya group, or because they associated themselves with poet Yahya Hassan, who was very critical about the hypocrisy and life style of many ghetto immigrants. But I would certainly not rule off another DENK like party having more success; it seems quite likely.

The first taste of the potential problems for the Alternative came today. The daily Jyllands-Posten had a story on their front page about an internal islam conflict in the party. Parts of the Pakistani immigrant groups around the party has warned people about voting for Kashif Ahmad because "he is not a muslim" since he is ahmadiyya. Instead they are encouraged to vote for sunni muslim Shahzad Riaz from the party. It is hard to gauge how big these groups are, but there are references to leaflets and facebook posts plus video material from a candidate meeting, where several members of the audience make that point. Riaz represents the Alternative in that meeting, and doesn't say anything in response to the comments.
It will be interesting to see how much success the Alternative will have tomorrow in actually getting that immigrant vote. With the decline predicted for the party, it will become harder for the new candidates to get in. Ahmad and Riaz both run in Copenhagen, where party leader Uffe Elbæk will easily win the only seat the party looks likely to get. However, if the party manage to hold on to a seat in Copenhagen Environs, there is a chance that Sikander Siddique, from the same network as Riaz, could beat semi-famous comedian Anders Stjernholm and win the seat.

[DavidB.]

Last poll by DR. More evidence for "clown world" if it's true that V will be gaining this much after their erratic campaign...

[Diouf]

I will see tomorrow whether there are any last polls from some pollsters in the morning, and then compile an average based on each pollsters' final polls. There have been some quite significant differences in the polls throughout the campaign.
I'm also somewhat surprised that the Liberals have gained in the last few days. Løkke is doubling down on the grand coalition narrative, and says he wants to avoid the other left bloc parties to force Mette Frederiksen into irresponsible economic policies, loose immigration policies etc. They must have the feeling that this message is helping them attract centrist voters.
Looks like there will be several parties just around the threshold. We don't know enough about the distribution of the three new parties' votes to judge whether they could be in play for constituency seats, even if falling just below 2%. But all three are very centred around their leaders, and New Right and Tough Line's party leaders run in the two largest constituencies, where the lowest % is needed to win a constituency seat. And then there's of course also the third way to cross the threshold if support is concentrated in 2 of 3 electoral regions. I don't really see that helping New Right or Klaus Riskær with expected good support in Northern Zealand and Copenhagen. Tough Line perhaps?

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Why did the DF fall so rapidly in polling? It seemed at least somewhat neck and neck between the coalitions and then bam. Can someone with good knowledge here explain?

[mileslunn]

What time do the polls close at, and are there any exit polls?  How quickly do results usually come in?  Also is there a chance of an upset like Australia where the Blue Bloc pulls off a win despite almost all polls suggesting it won't.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

What time do the polls close at, and are there any exit polls?  How quickly do results usually come in?  Also is there a chance of an upset like Australia where the Blue Bloc pulls off a win despite almost all polls suggesting it won't.

The polls close at 8 pm, local time and there will be an Exit poll at the website of DR (Danish Public Service). If they count the ballots as fast as we do in Sweden, the results should be pretty certain around 11 pm.

The average polling lead for the Red bloc is much bigger than ALP's lead in the Australian election. An upset wouldn't be an upset if it were expected, but the Blue bloc pulling out a victory is very unlikely though they might get a better result than expected. 

[DavidB.]

Turnout at 10 AM was 19.8%, five points up from 2015, when it was 14.8%. But this time, polling stations opened one hour earlier, at 8 instead of 9.

[DavidB.]

A 62-year old school teacher named Lars Peter Nielsen 'mooned' Hard Line leader Rasmus Paludan when the latter went to vote in a school. Nielsen was fined for it.

[Diouf]

It should be noted that today it's Constitution Day, where some but not all have the day off. This is a day where many politicians have several speeches at traditional events around the country. Turnout patterns could be different with more people voting earlier than usual since they have the day off.

[DavidB.]

Ah, I was already wondering. At 2 PM, turnout was 51.3% compared to 38.1% in 2015. Final turnout was 85.9% in 2015. I have a feeling it's going to be close to 90% this time.

Did you vote Liberal again?

[pilskonzept]

A 62-year old school teacher named Lars Peter Nielsen 'mooned' Hard Line leader Rasmus Paludan when the latter went to vote in a school. Nielsen was fined for it.

He showed him that a Hard Line can also be vertical.

A tougher line against Islamism is necessary imho. But why would you vote for a loose cannon like Paludan?

[crals]

Why is DPP apparently imploding so badly? It doesn't seem like they're losing much to their right, and NB/SK weren't running in the EU election anyway. Is it then because other parties have basically adopted their policies?