Wednesday's vote count in Stockholm: High number of early votes and regret votes

- We will finish the review today. It will be too complicated otherwise, but whether we will count any votes today, I cannot say, says Eva Debels, head of office at the electoral board in the city of Stockholm.

During the preliminary vote count on Wednesday, 122 tellers and 18 table managers, who help the tellers with assessments, early votes and postal votes in Stockholm City Hall, are checking. At first the tellers review all the votes, then they must be counted.

- You can clearly see that the premature votes are increasing from year to year, they are getting more and more. It felt like we had grazed from the pile, now we have just as much left again, says vote counter Gustaf Gast.

Gustaf Gast, who has counted votes every election since 1998, has another day job but has rescheduled to count votes on Wednesday.

- I think this is important and fun, so I have been running for a long time. I want to be included in the Wednesday count, and then I have made sure to move my working hours, says Gustaf Gast.

During Wednesday's count, all early votes that did not have time to go to the polling stations and all postal votes are handled.

- There are a lot of premature votes. It is much more than it usually is, says Eva Debels, who is working her sixth parliamentary election.

She continues:

- There are also a lot of rejected early votes. Quite a few of them are actually voices of regret.

The failed early votes that are counted as regret votes, i.e. those who went and voted again after they voted early, are not accepted during the Wednesday count. Eva Debels believes that it probably has to do with the misregistration of votes. In previous elections, there have been one or three votes of regret per electoral district. This election, the electoral board's head of office states that a district recorded 20 regret votes.

- Perhaps you felt that you wanted to vote with regret to be sure that you had cast your vote. I also think that there were many who voted early and then regretted it, says Eva Debels.

The tellers began reviewing the votes at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, and they did not know how long they would remain.

- I expect that we will be here in the evening. We get tired, but we practiced this during election day. We sit two by two and check that it is the right voter, that it is the right vote, the right color for the right choice, says voter Gustaf Gast and continues:

- They don't get an end time. We are here until the review is complete. We've loaded up with some candy, so the counters can handle it. It's called the Wednesday count precisely because you do it on Wednesday and then you can extend it to Thursday if you don't finish in time, says Eva Debels.