Elections and voting

​​​​​​​The Ministry of Justice is the highest election authority in Finland. The Ministry bears the overall responsibility for conducting general elections, coordinates the preparatory work for elections, and provides guidance to other authorities.

In addition, the Ministry of Justice is responsible for drafting election legislation and developing the electoral system and the election information system.

The Electionsfinland.fi websiteLink to an external website maintained by the Ministry of Justice provides comprehensive information on elections, voting and development projects related to elections.

In addition to the Ministry of Justice, result and information services related to elections are provided by Statistics FinlandLink to an external website (official election statistics) and the Digital and Population Data Services AgencyLink to an external website (numbers of eligible voters, for example).

Finland's first elections based on universal and equal suffrage were the 1907 parliamentary elections.

The following general elections are conducted in Finland:

• parliamentary elections every four years
• county elections and municipal elections every four years
• election of the President of the Republic (presidential election) every six years
• elections to the European Parliament (European elections) every five years.

In addition to elections, it is possible to conduct national consultative referendums, municipal referendums and county referendums. They are based on universal suffrage in the same manner as elections.

In Åland, elections to the Åland Parliament and municipal elections are held every four years, but not at the same time as in the rest of Finland.