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Comment by da1 | Hacker News Reader

Sweeden has many "peculiarities", the one that tremendously impresses me is that voting is effectively not secret.

From what was described to me, when you vote you ask for a sheet of paper. You can ask for several but you'll get weird looks from people. The end result is that anyone that votes in fringe options is effectively identified because no one else asks for those options.

The person that told me this was competely oblivious to any problem with it. When I mentioned that this makes voting "de facto" not secret he mentioned that next time he would ask for all options.

I just don't get it.

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For those curious, the process is described here [1]. As a voter, you go to a table and pick a ballot that represents your choice. You can pick a pre-printed ballot with your party's name on it, or you can take a blank ballot and write it manually. If you want to keep your choice secret, you can pick a bunch of random ballots, but submit just one of them.

For comparison, in Sweden's neighbouring country of Norway, the voting booth where you pick and fill out the ballot is covered with a curtain. You fill out the ballot (they're all printed on the same type of paper), which you fill out and fold so that it hides the contents. You then go over to an election worker, who confirms your identity and gives you an envelope to put the ballot in, which you then seal and put in the drop box.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Voting

Thank you very much for the detailed description.

> or you can take a blank ballot and write it manually

I've been told that in small places in the countryside doing this is tremendously deviant and carries serious covert social consequences.

That seems very backward. They took the blind ballot and modified it, missing the point entirely!

It varies, usually you have all the papers laid out in a room. You're then free to pick just the ones you'll vote on or you can do like some and take one of each.

Parties will often also send voting blankets in the mail so you can somewhat secretly bring your own papers from home. The only issue there is that some places sets up the voting stands in such a poor way that people almost can see what you're doing anyway.

Another issue that has occurred during the past couple of elections is that the RF/AFA frat boys decided to stand guard at the entrance of some voting places, trying to stop people who intended to vote for SD.

How come this is never brought up in international settings, say the UN or EU?

It's so outlandish when I first heard it I though people were just joking.

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