Election gains momentum as advance voting continues

Voting in the parliamentary elections is gaining momentum as significant number of voters cast their votes during the weekend.

A total of 938070 votes were cast till Sunday night, the fifth day of advance voting, which is 22.0 percent of the total votes, sources at the Ministry of Justice said.

The advance voting turnout for the 2019 parliamentary elections so far has been higher compared to the last elections in 2015, national broadcaster Yle reported.

About 814,000 voters cast votes till of Saturday, which was 19.1 percent of the total voters, the number was 705,000 at that stage in 2015 elections, which was 16.7%, reported Lapin Kansa, a Finnish language daily.

The advance voting has begun on April 3 to elect 200 lawmakers from a total of 2468 candidates for a four-year term. A total of 19 registered political parties are taking part in this year´s elections while 136 people are contenting as independent candidates.

Domestically, the early voting will continue till April 9 while the advance voting was held from April 3 to April 6 abroad.

Abroad, advance voting was held at 219 Finnish diplomatic or consular missions or their offices in 86 different countries.

The parliamentary elections will be held on 14 April 2019.

A total of 911 polling stations were set up in the country for the advance voting.

The advance polling stations were mainly set up at town halls, libraries and other municipal agencies and offices during the weekdays and different markets on the weekend.

There will be 1,943 election day polling stations around the country.

The election day is Sunday 14 April, and the polling stations will then be open between 9.00 and 20.00. On election day, voters may cast their votes only at the polling station specified on the polling card sent to them before the elections.

The counting of advance votes will be started already during the election day. The counting of votes cast on election day will be started once the polling stations have been closed. Preliminary information about the vote count will be published at 20.00 on election day, when the advance vote count will mainly be completed.

Preliminary results of the elections will be available during the evening of the election day and the following night.

A recount of the votes will be conducted in the constituency electoral committees on Monday 15 April. The constituency electoral committees will confirm the final results of the elections on Wednesday 17 April.