Norwegian Parliamentary Election

Monday, September 13th.

Results

Election system

Cycle: every 4 years.

Method: Sainte-Laguë method. Paper ballots. ID required. Counted 2 times locally, one of which has to be manually, then a 3rd time with the rest of the constituency.

Stortinget (The Parlament) is the highest authority in Norway. The Monarch is responsible to form a government. Stortinget does not form a government, but can vote to have the Monarch, government or any minister removed or replaced. MPs cannot also be Ministers and their place in Stortinget is taken by the next on the list while they serve as Ministers.

Voting population: 3'876'200 people. 1'645'913 has pre-voted, 42.34%

Timeline: Early-voting until August 10th. 8'469 early-votes were cast.

Pre-voting can be done between 10th August and last Friday before election day. This can be done anywhere. On election day, you can only vote in your home municipality. 172 of 426 (2017 numbers) municipalities open voting Sunday September 10th. All municipalities open for voting Monday September 11th. By law, election day is a day in September. By law, the Monarch selects election day on a Monday. Local municipality government can allow voting to start on the Sunday before, not instead of Monday. Special laws apply outside mainland Norway.

Electoral threshold:

The Norwegians elect 169 representatives for Stortinget. 150 are selected directly, the last 19 are Utgjevningsmandater (Leveling seat/Ausgleichsmandat), one from each election district (corresponding to the old counties). To get a leveling seat, a party must have more than 4.0% total votes. This year, there are 4 parties that can all go on either side of the 4.0%, and will have huge impact on the final result. Informal video from NRK (Norwegian BBC) with English subs.

It is important to note that there also is a Sami parliamentary election the same day. Only Sami people can vote. The Sami people can vote in both elections.

Table of significant parties from Left to Right

2013–2018: H, FRP, (election in 2017) 2018–2019: H, FRP, V, 2019–2020: H, FRP, V, KRF, 2020–: H, V, KRF. The left coalition AP, SP and SV had governmental power 2005-2013.

2017 election and current parlament

The current Storting was elected in 2017, with 78.2% voting participation. Maintaining a weak block lead of the right block (H, FRP, KRF, V) of 88 MPs. This is was down from 96 in 2013. 85 MPs are needed for a majority. Because of the new lower number of MPs, and V was able to force their way into government positions in 2018. KRF had a national conference where they questioned if they should stop supporting the right block government, and force a change in government in late 2018. They ended up choosing the right block, against the will of the party leader, who step down because of that. This gave a H, FRP, V, KRF government in early 2019, first right wing majority government since 1985. However, this only lasted until early 2020, when FRP left the government over the decision to bring female Norwegian ISIS terrorists and their children home. It can also be speculated that they left government to position themselves as opposition party for the 2021 election. H, V, KRF has reigned since with only 61 MPs. Normally that would be considered a weak government, but because of the pandemic it has arguably been easier to govern as major decisions has often been mandated by medical authorities.

2017 election

Images below are taken from the NRKs election page, and reflect recent polling, not actual results.

Polling week 36 (compared to August poll)

MP distribution (compared to 2017 election)

Parties at the 4% treshold

Average polls last 5 years

Notable trends and topics:

• The Socialist parties SV and R have both doubled in size, and R is now polling comfortably at around 5%, above the 4% threshold. SV was part of the 2005-2013 AP, SP, SV government. AP is still refusing to accept R into government, and SP is leaning further right.

• The green MDG party also seems to be dubling, and is polling at around 5%, above the 4% threshold. Green politics has been a major topic during the last years, and it especially peaked when IPCC released their "Code Red for Humanity" the same time the election campaigns started.

• SP was earlier a party for farmers, but has over the last decade or two formed into a party for "local policies". Polling at around 6% in 2015, they had a sharp increase to 10% at the 2017 election. During the last 4 years, they have had a slow and steady increase, peaking at 25% in early 2021, making them Norways 2nd largest party in those polls. This led them to suggest their own leader as prime minister candidate. Arguably this was a bad idea, as it forced them into having to talk about major national and international topics. And while they are able to communicate about local policies, when put into a national and international setting, they fell apart in comparison to AP and H. This led to them plummeting in the polls down to now 12%. Their focus on "local policies", rural voters, the party leaders participation on "The Masked Singer", and refusal to answer questions about what parties they would work with, has made people see them as "nationalistic", populist and the leader as "Norways Trump".

• The Christian KRF party has had a steady decline for decades, and have now reached the point where they are probably going to fall below the 4% threshold. If that happens, they could easily go from 8 down to 1 or 2 MPs. Last week it was revealed that their leader, and current Minister of Children, Family and Church Affairs has been living for free in the Parliaments homes for MPs who have to move to Oslo. These homes are designed so that people who are elected and suddenly have to move their entire family to Oslo, one of the most expensive cities in the world, will not suffer huge economic burdens for a job where there often is no job security. The problem in this specific case, is that the party leader was already living in Oslo and had already bought a family home near Oslo. But he was registered as living with his parents where he grew up. Because he originally moved to Oslo as a student, he was technically allowed to be registered at his parents home. He only moved out of "his moms basement" last year as a 34 year old minister with wife and children. Until then, he had been living for free, had travel to his parents paid for, other tax benefists, and was renting out a family home near Oslo. We are yet to see the full impact of this story.

• H has steadily been losing votes since the last election. As the control the PM and Minister of Health positions, they had a sharp increase during the pandemic. But voters seem to have stabilized back to pre pandemic times now, and H is set to lose 5-10% corresponding to losing 10-15 MPs. But this is highly dependent on if the smaller parties can break the 4% threshold. The same can be said of FRP, who didn't get to see such a large gain during the pandemic, as they left the government only a few weeks before it came here.

• The liberalist V has also fallen since the last election, but is polling comfortably above the 4% margin.

• The labour party AP has been declining steadily for the last years. It's argued that the increasing housing market, and 8 years of right wing government is making the even more socialist SV and R seem more favourable to the labourers.

• The "Other" parties seem to this year have a real possibility of being elected this time. In a few places, parties such as "Pasientfokus" (Patient focus) whos single mission is to have the local hospital be in Alta, is only polling a few hundred voted away from an MP seat.

TL;DR: The election is extremely open. 4 parties are polling at around the 4% threshold. This will be the deciding factor in this election. Combined with the decline in the large AP and H, it's going to cause an extremely weak government with almost every outcome. The current right wing government will most likely fall, and the question is how powerfull the socialists and the green party will become.

Other facts

Solberg means "sun mountain".

Støre is a type of fish.

With 3.7 million voters and 169 MPs, each MP represents 20-26 thousand people. Except for representatives from Finnmark, who represent only 10 thousand people each.

2017 parliamentaryelection

2019 local elections