ATT STÅ I KÖ FÖR ATT RÖSTA En kvalitativ intervjustudie om köande väljares uppfattningar och tankegångar kring valköer i det svenska riksdagsvalet 2022

Abstract

A new electoral law was implemented in the Swedish parliamentary election of 2022. The aim was to strengthen electoral secrecy and meant that the voters took their ballot papers one by one behind the voting booth. Accordingly, the Electoral Authority issued a warning that the law could cause voting queues. Consequently, the warnings turned out to be correct and meant that Sweden faced a new unexplored situation. Previous studies have shown that longer voting queues cause longer waiting times and result in higher costs of voting which can risk reneging voters. The present dominating quantitative research field lacks explaining voters’ perceptions and ways of thinking, since other values are expected to be found. The first contribution consists of the qualitative one, using long interviews suitable to find varying reasonings. Furthermore, voting queues occur continuously in American and African countries and dominate the research field. Examining a country like Sweden with rare voting queues, very high voter turnout and a voting norm highlights the urgency of exploration. The second contribution therefore involves the unexplored Swedish case. The thesis provides broader perspectives of reasonings to captivate a more thorough understanding of voting queues. Costs and benefits of voting queues, civic duties, time and patience, were central findings in accordance with the literature. Nevertheless, new findings were discovered. Perceptions of what is more costly versus beneficial, new perceptions within the paradox of voting and the calculus of voting as well as the queuing experience were found which provide new reasonings.