Helsinki Voted: The Also Rans

I didn’t manage to cover, as I originally planned to do, all the parties involved in the Helsinki city council election, at least not before election day itself, this past Sunday. 

So, for the sake of tying up loose threads, I’m going to briefly mention the seven plus parties that also ran. 

Liberaalipuolue, (The Liberal Party). This is another one of those very minor parties, and a new one. It was registered as a formal party only last year, after existing briefly as an unofficial protest group called the “Whiskey Party”. I’m guessing by its slogan Vapaus valita (“Freedom to Choose”), that it has a libertarian bent. It won no seats on the council. 

The Liberal Party. "Cheaper housing, freer Helsinki."

Itsenäisyyspuolue or IPU, (The Independence Party). Another small, fringe party, whose main program is Finland’s exiting the EU. It won no seats. 

The Independence Party. "Decision-making close, humanity the priority."

Perussuomalaiset, (The True Finns). This party has gained some international attention as one of those rising anti-immigrant, xenophobic, EU-skeptic right-wing parties, like France’s National Front or UKIP. It seems, however, that PS is rising no longer. 

In a US context, PS wouldn’t be seen as so completely right-wing, in the sense that it has no desire to touch Finland’s generous welfare system, a system which any right-thinking American conservatives would recoil at as being “socialist”. PS would probably argue that it’s safeguarding the social welfare system -- by keeping unwanted and undeserving immigrants from accessing it. It may not be a winning argument. 

In the Helsinki city council PS lost two of its previous eight seats. Its municipal support in the country overall dropped by 3.5%, making it this election’s biggest loser. 

True Finns. "Your vote worth it, because of True Finns"

Svenska folkpartiet i Finland, (Swedish People’s Party of Finland). This is the party that has traditionally advocated for the interests of Swedish speakers, Finland largest linguistic minority (about five percent of the country). Other than protecting the official status of the Swedish language in the public sphere, the party has a broadly liberal agenda that no doubt attracts the votes of some non-Swedish speakers. The party retained its five seats (eller, dess fim platser). 

The Swedish People's Party. "Near you in Helsinki."

Suomen Keskusta, (The Central Party of Finland). This is one of the three major parties nationwide, along with Kokoomus and the Social Democrats. It is basically an agrarian party, so naturally its support base is concentrated in the countryside. Urban Helsinki, no so much. The party lost one of the three seats it held in the last council.

Keskusta. "Caregivers in Helsinki."

Kansallinen Kokoomus, (The National Coalition Party). Finland’s pro-business party, which you might think makes it analogous to the American Republicans, or at least old fashioned “Country Club” Republicans. That is, it’s pro-business without the social conservativism and anti-government obsessions of modern-day Republicans. 

Kokoomus gained two seats in Sunday’s elections, strengthening its position as the council’s biggest party with 25 seats. 

Kokoomus. "The makers of Helsinki's future."

Vihreä liitto, (The Green League). The Greens, a well-established, yet relatively young party (30-years-old, this year), was the big winner in the election, increasing its support nationwide by almost 4%, the most of any party, and adding three seats in Helsinki, bringing it to 21. 

It is, naturally enough, a party dedicated to environmental and human-rights issues. 

The Greens. "Together a better Helsinki."

Otherwise in the election, the SDP lost 3 seats, holding its position as the third-biggest party, with 12 seats. Vasemmisto gained one seat, bringing it up to ten. The Feminist party won its first ever seat, as did the Pirate Party. 

The Christian Democrats kept its two seats, though one will now be filled by Keskusta politician Paavo Väyrynen, whom I was earlier shocked to see on the Christian Dems list. I have since learned that Väyrynen joined the CD list after Keskusta refused to allow him to run in his native Lapland. The move seemed to work out for him. 

Parties that won not even a single seat were the marginal leftist parties the Communist Workers’ Party and the Communist Party of Finland, which lost the one seat it did have. 

Some parties I’d never even heard of, such as the Suomen Eläinoikeuspuolue (Animal Rights Party) and Edistyksellistä Helsinkiä (Progressive Helsinki) also got no seats. 

I’m happy to say voter turnout in my neighborhood was 71.8%, better than the 61.6% for Helsinki overall. We are some politically engaged folks around here! 

Helsinki Votes: Feminists and Pirates

Unlike the United States, Finland has quite a few political parties to choose from, including some fairly small ones. Many of the small fry, it has to be said, hold no real sway over public affairs. Or ever will. 

Still, compared to the US paradigm where you basically have the choice of voting for one of two big parties, even if those parties only partly match your view of what matters in public life, Finnish voters can probably take some satisfaction in being able to cast a ballot for a more personalized party, one that much better fit their points of view. Even if those may be very niche points of view.

One such "niche" party I've noticed now fielding candidates in the Helsinki city election is a completely brand new one: Feministinen Puolue (The Feminist Party). Color-branded in pink, naturally enough.

The party's three focus areas are gender equality, non-discrimination, and human security. In other words, an overarching concern for human-rights issues. This dovetails, from a progressive perspective, with some of the most relevant -- or some would say contentious -- issues in Finland today: immigration and multiculturalism.

This progressive bent is reflected somewhat in the makeup of the 24 candidates in the Helsinki race. Two are wearing hajids, for example. 

Of course, multiculturalism and gender issues figure prominently in other Finnish parties on the progressive side, so you might think there's some redundancy in launching a new, narrowly focused party. But, if you really wanted to concentrate your political energies on these particular issues, a new start-up targeting a niche of voters could be the right way to go. The marketplace at work in politics, you could say. 

"Kaupunki ilman rasismia" (City without racism.) 

Another niche party is, in a sense, an immigrant. Okay, more like an import. The Finnish Piraattipuolue (Pirate Party) was created in 2008, a couple of years after its sister (or maternal?) party was founded in Sweden. 

While the party has a unsurprisingly computer-geek/renegade vibe to it, many of the issues it is concerned with are now -- in this age of Wikileaks and surveillance worries -- a big part of today's mainstream news cycle. 

The party's wheelhouse are "information" policies that touch on privacy, transparency, freedom of speech, and -- as you might expect for a party with "pirate" in its name -- the overhauling of copyright and patent restrictions. The temptation to say "keelhauling" instead was very hard to resist. Arrr!

The party also proposes replacing the existing social welfare system with "basic income", which has been widely discussed in Finland in recent years, and is in fact being trialed on a limited basis. 

It's a distinctive set of issues that might very well pique the interest of some voters, though in its nine years of existence, the party has apparently never had a candidate elected to any office. With that in mind, it will be interesting to see how its 31 candidates for the Helsinki City Council fare on Sunday. 

Some of these guys do have a striking resemblance to Johnny Depp.
Well, maybe one anyway

https://piraattipuolue.fi/en/

Helsinki Votes: Christian Democrats

In the Helsinki City Council election this Sunday, one of the mainstream parties vying for my vote is the Christian Democrats (Kristillisdemokraatit). It’s a somewhat minor party, currently holding only two seats in the city council and only five in the national parliament.

The national party is led by Sari Essayah, a 50 year-old woman who I still more often think of as a champion race walker. She competed in the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. She also enjoys, in a sense, some name-recognition due to having a decidedly non-Finnish family name, Essayah, which comes from her Moroccan father.

As I scanned the list of KD’s 123 candidates displayed on a placard at the end of my street last week, I was shocked to see among them Paavo Väyrynen, a veteran Finnish politician. Very veteran. He’s been around forever. What surprised me was that, as far as I knew, Väryrynen has always been a member of a different party, the Keskusta, for which he has been a parliament and cabinet member and two-time presidential candidate. And, I thought he lives in Lapland, at least officially, not Helsinki. As it turns out, in the KD list he is marked as sitoutumaton (unaffiliated), which means he’s attaching his wagon to the Christian Democrats only for this race.

As the name Christian Democrat implies – well not implies, but states outright – the party is based on a particular religion and reflects the concerns of the more religious elements of the Finland population. My sense is that KD supporters are drawn mostly from Lutherans, and not so much from the Russian Orthodox.

As an openly religious party, you might compare the KD to America’s Republican Party, which is now, more than ever, an implicitly Christian party, despite recently electing the most un-Christ-like president you can possibly imagine.

But there are big differences. On the KD’s website (available in Finnish, Swedish, and English), you’ll find that its concerns are mainly health and well-being for families and the environment.

Some of the specific aims detailed in what might be called its manifesto for the municipal elections, entitled in English “Called to Care”, are such goals as: 

• Services for families must be increased to support parenthood and to help manage everyday life.
• School performance must be improved. Finland succeeds with know-how.
• We want mould resistant municipalities. [For Americans, this would be "mold resistant".]
• We want a comprehensive [health] service promise. Treatment must be available quickly and neighbourhood services accessible. Health inequalities have to be decreased.
• We defend smooth and affordable public transport

Missing from the list are many of the hot-button issues that get Republican Christians in the US so riled up. There’s no mention of abortion. There’s certainly no mention of same-sex marriage or which public bathroom a transgender person should be allowed to use. No mention of "religious freedom". (Of course, you might not expect such national-level issues to feature in local elections anyway.)

Now, I can’t say for certain that such culturally conservative topics aren’t, in fact, motivating issues for some Christians in Finland, and maybe even internally within the Christian Democratic Party. 

But, if so they aren’t widely discussed, perhaps due to the fact that such socially conservative views would be considered far outside the Finnish mainstream. Religious Finns don’t typically wear their faith on their sleeves the way Americans do and certainly don't political about it. You might say this reflect a general Finnish "live-and-let live" attitude.  Or maybe it's a reluctance to stray far outside a relatively narrow consensus of society.  

In any case, the word “Christian” (or any kind of reference to religion) appears only once in the KD "manifesto", in the following statement:

• Let’s play Suvivirsi. We cherish the Christian cultural heritage of Finland.

Now, this is an interesting issue, and it involves a song. 

Suvivirsi, which translates to “Summer Hymn”, is a song about the end of the school year and the beauty of the approaching summer. As any parent who has attended a year-end grammar-school happening will tell you, Suvivirsi is a firmly embedded Finnish traditional. After the schoolkids have finished their little plays and musical performances, after the ceremonious handing out of certificates for graduating students, after the fidgeting of the kids in the audience reaches a critical mass, everyone in the auditorium stands up and sings Suvivirsi as a long-awaited denouement to the school year.

In years past, I took part in this sing-along many times but, as with any song in Finnish, I was able to only hum along, since I had no clue about the lyrics. Everyone else in the auditorium knew the words by heart. And it’s an issue over those words – including a couple of references to God, the Creator – that has caused the song to be specifically mentioned in KD’s manifesto.

I have heard that, as highly secular Finland has become perhaps more conspicuously less Christian than in years past, Suvivirsi has created a controversy of some sort. 

Some people have questioned why schoolkids who are non-religious or of another faith, for example Muslim, should have to sing a hymn that flatters a Lutheran deity. I think there may even be cases where schools have already dispensed with the song altogether. This, naturally, can rub some people the wrong way.

Since our kids left school some years ago I can't say if anything has actually changed at our local school. I'm guessing the song is still being sung at the end of the year, the lyrics unchanged. And, personally, I don’t see why this should be a big deal.

Okay, it’s true that it’s a Lutheran hymn, referencing Jumala (“God”) and Herra (“Lord”). So, the song obviously assumes some religious belief. Naturally, I can't say for certain how Muslims see it, but – wading into some tricky theological waters here – I’ve understood they worship the same “God” as the Lutherans do, so singing a line or two about that god shouldn’t seem so out of line. Perhaps they would take issue with Herra, which I assume refers to Jesus. Still, how much of an affront should this be to the average Muslim? Again, I can't claim any special insight to that question. 

In many ways, it's the atheists who should have more cause for objecting to Suvivirsi. and perhaps do. Yet, I know atheists, principally in my own family, who have no problem with singing it. They see it as more "cultural", than actually "religious". I tend to agree. Perhaps another example of the Finnish live-and-let-live attitude. 

In any case, Suvivirse may be a natural talking point for the Christian Democrats that sets them apart from most of the other parties, but I can't imagine it will be a big enough issue to garner another Helsinki City Council seat or two. Guess we'll see after Sunday's election. 

Street-level Elections

A week from today, Finland will hold elections for kunnat (basically county-level municipalities). These are held across the nation every four years and have a major impact on local governance. (Well, duh!)

In the case of Helsinki, this means electing the Helsinki City Council, which is made up of 85 members, almost as big as the US Senate.

As a legal resident of Finland, I’ve been eligible to vote in these local elections for a couple of decades already, long before I became a citizen. I usually vote for the Greens.

I can’t claim to be an expert on Finnish politics, other than having a rough idea where the major parties stand on the political spectrum. And in truth, Finland, being a very consensus-minded country, with regard to many issues there aren’t large gaps between major parties.

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to profile, over several posts, at least some of the parties involved in the Helsinki election. But, of course, first I needed to acquaint myself with who’s running.

The most concrete way to do that is check out the old-school placards displayed in long, purpose-built metal frames located around the city. One of these is set up every election season in the same spot in our neighborhood, on the sidewalk at the end of my street opposite a garden supply store. You can’t miss it.

The empty frame appeared there already a couple of weeks ago and has gradually been filled with placards from different parties listing all their candidates in the Helsinki race.

A few days ago, I took a walk down the street to take a look. About half of the spots in the frames were still empty, with placards absent from some of the major parties, such as Kokoomus and the Swedish People's Party.

The parties that were represented were: 

• Feminist Party (Feministinen puolue)
• Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue)
• Greens (Vihreät)
• Christian Democrats (Kristillisdemokraatit)
• Independence Party (Itsenäisyyspuolue)
• Communist Labor Party (Kommunistinen Työväenpuolue)
• Finnish Center Party (Suomen Keskusta)
• Finnish Communist Party (Suomen kommunistinen puolue)
• Pirate Party (Piraattipuolue)
• Liberal Party (Liberaalipuolue)
• Martti Linnoaro (some guy with no party affiliation “sitoutumaton”)

I’ll try to cover at least some of these parties in the next few days -- maybe starting with the Christians. 

Losers and Winners

It’s been 19 days since the Finnish parliamentary election, and there is still no government in place. At least, not quite. This isn’t unusual. 

And, I should point out that by "government", I mean "cabinet". The actual functioning bureaucracy of government is still there, intact. 

Compare this situation to the US, where you have a built-in two-month lag time between the election of a new US Congress and its actual installment in the Capitol. For presidential elections, the constitutionally decreed “lame-duck” period between election and inauguration is even longer.

Though we’ve still been waiting for the final makeup of the new Finnish government, the results of the vote itself were clear within hours of the polls closing at eight three Sundays ago.

As was widely expected, the business-friendly Kokoomus party, the biggest in parliament going into the election, lost its dominate position, apparently the victim of general voter dissatisfaction over the anemic economic recovery (if it can be called that). In its place rose the Keskusta (Center) Party, the party of the legendary Urho Kekkonen who presided over Finnish politics for a quarter of a century during the Cold War.

Keskusta, led by self-made millionaire Juha Sipilä, won 21.1% of the vote nationwide, giving it 49 seats in the new parliament, a huge increase of 14 from four years ago. Keskusta took most of those seats from two parties: Kokoomus and the Social Democrats, which got 18.2% and 16.5% of the vote, respectively. It was an especially hard blow for the SDP, since its loss wasn’t so widely expected. They were blindsided.

One especially bright spot in the election was the five seats picked up by the Greens, bringing its representation up to 15.

Still, the headline news was the “rise”, relatively speaking, of the anti-immigration anti-EU Perussuomalaiset party. I say “relatively” because the 17.6% of the vote garnered by PS meant they actually lost one seat, ending up with 38. The level of support for PS didn’t change significantly. PS was propelled into the Number Two position simply by the collapse of Kokoomus and SDP.

(The fact that PS came out one seat ahead of Kokoomus despite getting a half-percentage-point fewer votes is down to the D’Hondt method used to allocate seats.)

Voter turnout, despite the apparent huge interest in the election, was a somewhat disappointing 70.1%.

And now another inevitable comparison to America: turnout in the US mid-term election of 2014 hit a scandalous post-war record low of 36.4%. Okay, mid-term elections always attract fewer voters than do presidential races, but even in the 2012 vote – in which many conservative zealots I know lusted for the chance to turn Obama out of office — only 58% of Americans bothered to vote. Some democracy. 

Meanwhile, back in Finland, turnout was higher in Helsinki than for the nation overall (almost 75%), and I was pleased to see that my neighborhood did even better, with a turnout of 82.4%.

The earnest voters of this part of suburban Helsinki, where I live and voted myself, went overwhelmingly (almost 40%) for Kokoomus, followed by SDP (16%), the Greens (15%), PS (12%), and in fifth place, Keskusta (only 9%). In fact, Keskusta won only 7% of the vote in Helsinki overall, showing that there is something to the idea that Keskusta is still mainly a party of the countryside.

Since Keskusta's big election night victory 19 days ago, Juha Sipilä has been trying to put together a coalition from among the biggest winning parties, apparently a meticulous process of negotiation. There’s been lots of speculation about who will be included in the new government. The biggest worry among more mainstream establishment types is that, with its second-place finish, Perussuomalaiset will now demand a prominent role in the cabinet, something they didn’t seemed inclined to do four years ago.

With the announcement yesterday of an agreement finally being reached, those fears were proven to be well founded. The next government will indeed be a mashup of the rural Keskusta party and the more nativist Perussuomalaiset party, joined by Kokoomus, though this all remains to be formally finalized next week. 

The SDP was left out completely, as was the smaller, moderate Swedish People’s Party, which has had a role in every government for almost forty years.

The question now is how well will the Perussuomalaiset handle being in government, as opposed to just sniping at it. 

Machine Politics

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m preparing to vote in Finland’s parliamentary election for the first time.

In the past, I haven’t honestly paid enough attention to national politics here to have a clear idea which party would be my natural political home. In the US binary system of Republicans versus Democrats, my choice has always been much more clear cut. For someone who is severely liberal, as I like to think of myself, there is only one way to go.

In Finland, however, with almost 10 viable parties, some more major than others, I’ll have to give the matter a bit more thought.

In past city council elections, I’ve voted for the Green Party, out of – if nothing else – a vague sense of shared philosophy and the hope that it could affect more eco-friendly policies at the city level.

Of course, when it comes to the broader national government, there are other issues beside waste disposal or public transport to consider.

It often seems that Finland is a very consensus-based country, with no contentious issues seriously polarizing the population. For example, unlike in the US where the two parties are diametrically opposed to each other on government’s role in health care (the Republicans vowing time and again to roll back Obamacare), no credible party in Finland, on the left or the right, would advocate anything as radical as dismantling the state-run healthcare system.

To be sure, there are differences between Finnish parties on other issues, for which the two parties in the American system would be practically indistinguishable, such as the role of capitalism in the economy. (Despite what a Tea Partier would tell you, Democrats are no socialists.) I assume the tiny (only 0.05% of the vote last time) Communist Workers’ Party – For Peace and Socialism (that’s its name, Kommunistinen Työväenpuolue – Rauhan ja Sosialismin Puolesta) truly does want to toss capitalism onto the dustbin of history. You can’t say that about Hillary Clinton.

Still, this Finnish election cycle seems unusually lively, with more placards along the roadside, advertisement on buses, commercials on TV than I ever remember seeing before. Perhaps it’s just because I’m trying to pay more attention, but my sense is that this election is seen as more crucial than most.

Since my command of Finnish still isn’t up to following the political discussions on TV or even always in the print media, my impression of the issues that might make this election so urgent (or seem so urgent) is a bit vague, and perhaps totally incorrect.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three.

I can’t say whether Finns vote with their pocketbooks any more than anyone else, but the economic situation of any country is always an issue. And the situation in Finland isn’t sterling at the moment. In fact, it’s dismal.

Unemployment currently stands at a tad over 10%, not the highest it’s been since the start of the Great Recession, but still up two percent since the last election four years ago and three percent since the summer. Clearly, not a good trend.

Finland has been in a recession off and on for the past seven years, with seven quarters of negative growth (out of 15 reported so far) since the last election. Projections for the next couple of years are for weak growth, at best. Though Finland still retains a AAA credit rating from Fitch and Moody’s, it lost the top rating from Standard & Poors in autumn, sending a minor shock wave through the government.

A recent blog post by Edward Hugh, a Welsh economist and blogger, paints a very dire picture of the future Finland is facing due to something called “secular stagnation”.

For someone like me, who is not an economist and barely a blogger, Hugh’s erudite thesis requires a bit of digestion.

After two readings, what I was able to gleam (or so I think) from it is that the runaway success of Nokia, the bellwether of the Finnish economy back in the pre-crisis glory days, distorted the national labor market (by inflating incomes) to the point that Finland now finds itself uncompetitive against its main trading partners.

The combination of that with a growing population of aging pensioners and a shrinking population of working-age folks threatens to make economic stagnation a permanent feature of Finnish life. That is, at least, without some unpopular and unpleasant changes in government policy, especially related to labor.

Whether Hugh’s post has affected the election campaign in any way, I can’t say, but another economics assessment certainly did create some waves. It was related to another big issue in this campaign – immigration.

As in any country, immigration is a touchy issue here. With Finland’s climate, difficult language, and the current state of the economy, you might wonder there would be any rush to migrate here in the first place.

That said, some 32,000 people moved here in 2013. That’s the highest yearly influx ever, though that’s still only 0.6% of the population (one-fifth of the per capita legal immigration into the US). It has changed Finnish society, no doubt, though to what degree or to what lasting effect might be debatable. Many people I know see immigration as having a neutral or mostly net positive impact on Finnish life.

Others would disagree. And those Finns who feel uncomfortable, even hostile, over the prospect of more immigration have increasingly been drawn to the xenophobic Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), which upset the apple cart of Finnish politics in the last election with its unexpected success in parliament, boosting the party's presence from 5 to 34 seats.

Since then, the Finns Party doesn’t seem to be softening its stance any on immigration. A paper by a think tank associated with the party made headlines recently when it claimed to show how much immigrants from different countries cost Finnish taxpayers, with those from war-torn third-world nations (Iraq and Somalia, in particular) not faring well at all by comparison. Even if the numbers crunched in this analysis are valid, breaking down the cost of immigration along ethnic or nationalistic lines unfortunately adds an element of divisiveness into the election. Which, I guess, was largely the point.

The Finns Party is also strongly Eurosceptic, which brings us to the last big issue in this election, Finland’s relationship with the EU, Russia and NATO. Well, actually, relations with the EU isn't a big issue. My impression is that support for the EU is still strong among most Finns, despite complications with Greek debt and Russian sanctions. 

A major issue that wasn't even on the horizon four years ago is relations with Russia. In the marathon TV debate Thursday night between leaders of the eight major parties, I kept hearing the word "venäjä" repeated over and over.  

Russia's annexation of Crimea and sable-rattling elsewhere, especially in the Baltic Sea, has also breathed some life into the perennial, but usually peripheral, question of whether to join NATO. 

The current Prime Minister Alexander Stubb and many in his National Coalition Party support NATO membership. Most Finns (57%) still oppose it, though with Russian nationalism and military adventurism on the rise, support for joining the Western alliance has increased to 27% from 16% about four years ago. 

NATO will surely be one of those issues on the minds of voters this Sunday, though there are many others. Which can make choosing the right candidate or party a challenge, especially for me.

Luckily, there is a tool called a Vaalikone (“Election Machine”) published by the Helsingin Sanomat, to help you gauge which is the correct party for you. It’s a questionnaire, covering the economy, laws, society, and world affairs, that attempts to match your views to the positions of different parties. Several of the 30 questions have to do with the role of government in social services and the balance between environment and business. And naturally, there are questions about NATO, the EU, and immigration, but also about the government regulation of taxis, apparently inspired by Uber. That’s an issue I didn’t see coming.

Maybe I’ll also be surprised by the results I get from the Vaalitkone. We’ll see, though I'm pretty sure the “machine” won’t be telling me I should be voting for the Kommunistinen Työväenpuolue on Sunday. Too bad for them. They could probably use the votes.

Vaalit 2015: Not Any Given Sunday

On Sunday, Finns go to the polls to elect a new parliament. And so will I.

I have voted here several times. As an ulkomaalainen (foreigner) with permanent resident status, I had been eligible to vote in municipal elections for years, which essentially means I’ve been allowed to cast votes for Helsinki council members. This would largely be unheard of in the States, where outside a few places like Chicago, apparently, folks need actual citizenship to vote in any election, no matter how local.

Actual citizenship is a strict requirement for taking part in national elections in Finland as well. For that reason, until now I haven’t had much cause to think about which candidate, or even which party, would best match my politics. Now, as newly minted Finn, I do.

Deciding which party or candidate to support will be the hard part. The voting itself is made easy here, in some ways much easier than in the States. That, of course, should come as no surprise.

Both the red tape associated with voting and the practicalities of elections are much simpler.

In the States, Election Day is always on a Tuesday, a regular weekday when, obviously, most people have to go to work. The choice of Tuesday as a day for voting is a weird leftover from the 18^th century, when Tuesday was presumably seen as more convenient for farmers, which most Americans were at the time. It gave folks from the far corners of the county enough time to travel into town. Also, it didn’t interfere with the all-important church going on Sunday or the also important market day on Wednesday. Maybe it allowed those rural farmers to – in one trip – exercise their right to vote on Tuesday and then stay in town to sell their produce the next day – if they had sobered up enough.

Often in the past, Election Day in America was also a good excuse for some heavy partying. I recall hearing a story, from my grandfathers’ time of almost a century ago, of Election Night revelers riding mules through the courthouse in my home county.

Those kinds of rowdy hijinks on Election Day are long gone, though a much more subtle, even subversive, species of hijinks seems to reemerge now and then.

Anyway, the fact that working folks have to take time out from a busy day to vote seems inconvenient enough. As outmoded as Tuesday voting might seem, it’s written into the Constitution, and so it will never change. Sadly.

In Finland, voting is always on Sunday, a day when most people don’t punch a clock or go into the office. Likewise, most don’t ordinarily go to church, so religion doesn’t interfere with voting, and vice versa. It’s a much more leisurely, practical approach, if you ask me, generally making it easy for Finns to make it to the polls on Election Day.

Some can’t wait that long. Ten days before the election, I happened to step into the library in Oulunkylä, a northern Helsinki neighborhood. I was at first a bit perplexed why the periodical section of the library was unusually crowed with older folks just standing around. Then I realized they were actually queuing to vote in the library’s activity room.

It was the second day of advanced voting, which is arranged on seven dates before the actual election. Around Helsinki, early voting is possible in some 35 locations, mostly libraries or post offices, but also in a shopping mall. It seems a popular enough avenue for Finnish voters, and as far as I know, not the least controversial.

Unlike in the States, that is, where in some minds increasing the opportunities to vote is considered unfair to certain groups. The logic of this escapes me. Or maybe they think it’s too fair to certain groups. That sounds more like it.

Last October, a predominately Democratic county in Georgia, one of the 33 states that allow early voting, experimented with opening a polling place in a mall on the Sunday before Election Day. At the time, it was roundly criticized by state Republicans, apparently for making voting too easy for the local black community, and led to proposed legislation to correct this by reducing the number of early voting days from 21 to 12, explicitly excluding the Sunday before election. The bill was recently defeated.

To be somewhat fair, however, even 12 days is perhaps better than Finland’s seven. Still, making a point of reducing voting opportunities doesn’t appear to be a very democratic impulse, which is surely why it comes from the GOP.

As anyone who knows US history will remember, similarly non-democratic impulses were prevalent in the past, even institutionalized, especially in the South. I’m talking about using voter registration as a means of voter suppression.

In the US, voter registration is done on the county level, and in the Jim Crow South prior to 1965 local white officials put up as many barriers as possible to prevent blacks from taking even this first step for voting. People died, were murdered, for daring to help ensure US citizens could register to vote, black citizens, that is. And this in the country that styles itself as the role model of democracy.

Well, that was long ago. I would hope that unfair registration practices have never been used as a political weapon in Finland’s past. Chances are, registration has always been automatic and universal, just as it is now.

About a month before this year’s election, I received an ilmoituskortti (literally “notification card”), essentially confirming that I am registered to vote. I didn’t have to take any action to register. It happens automatically, just as it does for all Finnish citizens of voting age (my 19-year-old daughter also got registered, automatically). As I said, universal registration.

Of course, one big reason Finland can register every voter unsolicitedly is that everyone here is already in a government database. Whenever you relocate in Finland, move to a new town or address, you are required by law to register with the local police. It simplifies things.

People in Finland would see this as an easy way to ensure you’re properly integrated into the social services system and that the government can send you stuff, like ilmoituskortteja and tax returns. People in the US (at least some) would see it as an easy way to ensure the government can find you when it’s time to confiscate your guns. Those black helicopters have to know where to land, after all.

To me, this gap in mentality between the practical and the paranoid speaks volumes about the differences between the two countries.

A couple of weeks after the black helicopters my registration notice arrived, I received an unexpected official-looking envelope with the somewhat imposing letterhead of the Ministry of Justice. I was a bit startled and almost thought for a moment “This is what deportation looks like.”

Instead, it was a welcoming letter for first-time voters, along with a small pamphlet with some basic information about the process. It’s almost as if they are encouraging people to vote. As it should be.

The basics for a national election is just the same as for the municipal ones I’ve participated in before. At the polling place, you give your name and present a photo ID. The poll worker checks your name on a list, hands you a blank paper ballot with only a circle in the middle, which you take into a booth and mark with the number of your candidate. You fold the ballot to hide your choice, have the poll worker stamp the ballot, and then drop it in a box. No hanging chads here.

As I mentioned, a photo ID is required. This is another area that, in the States, can lend itself to election hijinks. But, frankly, I’m puzzled why this should be an issue.

In recent years, Republicans have pushed for stricter ID requirements for voters in order to counter what they claim is the problem of voter fraud. This is seen by many Democrats (no doubt, correctly) as an attempt to discourage voters who are more likely to support Democrats (namely, blacks and other minorities). It’s a weird issue.

First of all, the “issue” of voter fraud seems like a bald-face excuse, since many studies have shown that fraud based on identity is rare, apparently outnumbered by the cases of legitimately registered voters being turned away at the polls for lack of an ID.

At the same time, I see no reason why voters shouldn’t have to prove who they are. In other words, the motivations of the Republicans are cynical and conniving, but I have no problem with the “solution” of a photo ID requirement. After all, folks have to show an ID for many transactions that involve money, why not also for casting a vote?

While most Americans already have a photo ID in the form of a driver’s license, not all do, so there is the argument that requiring those citizens to obtain an ID just to exercise their constitution right is unfair.

That might be true in cases of some citizens – used to showing up at the polling place with nothing but their word to vouch for who they are – haven’t been given enough notice to get an ID (which some states do provide for free). Maybe I've lived in Finland too long, but it seems that requiring all citizens to have an ID shouldn't be such a huge deal.

I seem to recall the last time I voted in person in Georgia a few years ago, I had to drive back to my parents’ house to fetch my passport before I was allowed to vote at the volunteer firehouse down the road, even though some of the people there knew me. I don’t recall that it particularly bothered me.

Anyway, when I go to vote at the schoolhouse near my home on Sunday, I’ll be sure to take along my driver’s license. But first, I have to figure out who gets my vote. That’s the subject for another day, and it probably involves a vaalikone (“election machine”).

Middle of the Road?

As the US approaches another big vote, with the Democrats pitted against the Republicans for control of the Senate in the midterm elections, I have begun to think of political parties in terms of freeway driving.

Most freeways (moottoritiet, in Finland) consist of two lanes in each direction, except of course in cities, where the amount of traffic often demands more, in some US cities six lanes or more. In Helsinki, they’re much smaller, with the broadest piece of moottoritiet having maybe only three lanes in each suunta (direction).

But for most stretches of freeway, both here and in the US, you’re limited to only two lanes, one slow and one supposedly fast.

Now, as everyone knows, the flow of traffic is something that hardly any driver is ever satisfied with. You grow impatient with the bozo driving a bit too slow in front of you in the right-hand lane, so you pull into the left-hand lane to pass him, only to be immediately tailgated by some even bigger bozo who wants to go faster than you do – that is unless, you yourself are already the fastest bozo on the road. Perhaps it’s no wonder that road rage erupts from time to time.

Two Lanes on the American Highway.
Photo: Coolcaesar

The problem is that most of us have a speed that we’re most comfortable with, and that’s usually different for everyone else’s preferred speed.

When I used to commute to work along Helsinki’s Kehä I (Ring I) during rush hour, I would sometimes daydream about a road with a lane for every desired speed. Let’s say that every driver wants to travel at one of 30 or so speeds (75 kph, 77 kph, 80 kph, 82 kph, and so on), and a separate lane existed for each of those speeds. How efficient that would be! Driving comfortably at your own speed, with no need to overtake anyone.

It would, indeed, be a great system. Except when the guy going 120 kph in the farthest left-hand lane (reserved for 120-kph drivers) suddenly needs to cross 30 lanes of traffic to make the next exit ramp. That could be viewed as a small flaw in the system. That, and the amount of land a 60-lane freeway would require.

Anyway, I’ve started to think about such a “mega-road” model when looking at politics. When it comes to all kinds of possible political issues, most folks have widely different views, to say the least. In the US, these might be taxes, capital punishment, military spending, social security, abortion, climate change, the deficit, guns – good lord, yes, guns. Most people hold a mixture of views on all these different, and often-divisive, issues.

Even people broadly identifying themselves as liberal or conservative don’t see eye-to-eye on every issue with the fellow travelers on their side of the political spectrum. Some Democrats might support airstrikes against the Islamic State, while others are vehemently opposed. Some Republicans might want a balanced Federal budget, yet not have a problem with gay marriage.

It’s no doubt frustrating having to vote for a candidate from “your” party who doesn’t share your point of view on some issue especially important to you. As they say, no one size fits all.

This is why the two-party system in the US starts to look like two lanes on a freeway. All those voters, with their different combinations of pet peeves and strongly felt convictions, are forced to “drive” in one of two lanes, compelled to go 80 kph, because there’s no lane for the 85 kph they’d prefer.

US voters with less mainstream political views, say Socialists or hard-core white supremacists, might not have much choice other than biting the bullet and voting for the lesser of two evils, even though neither the Republican or Democratic Party establishment support their point of view.

Of course, even in the US, parties are not completely monolithic, and people mostly vote for individual politicians, some of whom might be outliers in their own party. For decades, voting Democratic could mean casting a ballot for either a northern liberal or a southern segregationist, a schizophrenic arrangement if there ever was. Plenty of Republican pols today are happy enough to defy the GOP establishment if it means gaining the support of the Tea Party elements back in their home district.

This is not to say that alternatives to the GOP and Dems don't exist. In the race for senator for Georgia, in addition to Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue, there is a third name on the ballot, Amanda Swafford of the Libertarian Party.

You can look at her campaign as an alternative for folks who feel the GOP doesn’t go far enough in ensuring a radical hands-off approach by government. You can also look at it as a chance to completely waste a vote. The most Swafford’s campaign can do, in reality, is dilute the vote count for Perdue, which is perfectly fine with me. Go Michelle!

This is the way it is with third parties in the American system. They are reduced to merely symbolic protest movements, appealing to only the most marginal of American voters. People often forget that there have even been Communist candidates for US president, not that this meant anything in practice.

The only impact of third parties is to sometimes cause one of the two mainstream parties to lose. Some Democrats still blame George Bush’s capture of the presidency in 2000 on Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who they see as diverting votes from Al Gore.

To skew the election outcomes even further, the American “winner-take-all” principle means that when a party loses, it really loses, even if it’s only by a tiny margin. Currently, the Democratic members of the Republican-controlled House are essentially powerless. Same for the Republicans in the Democratic-control Senate – which is why I find the likely prospect of the GOP gaining control of both houses very depressing.

It’s a bit different in Finland, as in much of the rest of Europe. While Americans drive on two lanes of the political freeway, voters here can choose from eight.

In fact, they have more lanes than that. There are something like 17 registered political parties in Finland, though only eight of these garnered enough votes in the last election to send a member to parliament.

The three biggest parties have traditionally been dominant: the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), the Center Party (Keskusta), and the Social Democrats (SDP). Smaller parties, such as the Left Alliance, the Greens, the Swedish People’s Party and the Christian Democrats, also play some role in parliament and have often been included in government. In recent years, a newcomer, the anti-EU, anti-immigration Finns Party, has arisen to offer yet another option to the part of the electorate that feels strongly about those issues.

And being a smaller party doesn’t necessarily mean being shut out of government altogether. Unlike in “winner-take-all” America, the coalition form of government here means even minority parties can still play in the sandbox. The current cabinet is made up of ministers from Kokoomus and SDP (seven each), plus the Swedish People’s Party (two) and the Christian Democrats (one).

Whether all this means Finns are satisfied enough with their government, I can’t say, though they’re clearly less disaffected than Americans are right now (approval of Obama 45%, of Congress 13%).

While the political differences here might not be so hugely great in the final analysis (after all, Finns are known for consensus), so many parties to choose from means voting still comes down to more than simply a matter of “left or right”, “liberal or conservative”, “vanilla or chocolate”, “Coke or Pepsi”.

As a new citizen with a chance to vote for parliament next April, I need to start thinking soon about which of those 17 lanes is more my own speed.