Pensioners active voters in the County elections 2025

Data on votes cast

The data on voting presented in the text are obtained from data on votes cast which are based on entries in the electronic voting register. The data on votes cast are useful especially when examining differences in the voting turnout of separate groups. These data are not available from other register data.

The examination covers persons entitled to vote in the County elections 2025, advance voters in the whole country and all who voted in such municipalities and voting districts where an electronic voting register was used on the election day. The examined voter groups are separate but partly overlapping. The following terms are used for the voter groups in the text, tables and figures:

Group 1. All persons who voted in advance in the elections in the whole country

Group 2. Advance voters and persons who voted on the election day in the voting districts that used an electronic voting register.

There were 3,970,342 persons entitled to vote in the County elections 2025. The voting districts where data on voting on the actual election day were available comprised 2,727,076 persons entitled to vote. Thus, data containing voting on the election day were received about 68.7 per cent of persons entitled to vote.

An electronic voting register is necessary for examining voting turnout on the election day. Data on voting on the election day were available from 207 municipalities. Data were available for all voting districts from 169 municipalities. Data were available for some voting districts from 38 municipalities.

The data obtained from the County elections cover the same persons entitled to vote and municipalities as the corresponding data in the Municipal elections. The reason for the better coverage of the data on the County elections is that these elections are not held in Helsinki.

The voting districts and municipalities where an electronic register was used are not divided evenly on the level of the whole country. The most comprehensive data were available in the wellbeing services county of Vantaa and Kerava, 100 per cent of persons entitled to vote. Data were the least comprehensive in the wellbeing services county of South Karelia, 10.1 per cent of persons entitled to vote.

Differences in the background and support for the parties among persons entitled to vote are marginal between the areas of the voting register and the whole country.

Interpretation of data on votes cast

The number of voters based on data on votes cast is not exactly the same as in the result data of the elections. There may be small differences by area in the numbers of voters extracted from different sources. This is because the number of those who voted in the election result data is based on ballots, while the data on votes cast are based on entries made in the electronic voting register on those who voted.

Differences may arise, for example, because of the following reasons: 1) a certain vote cast in advance voting is not taken into account on the basis of the Election Act, 2) an advance vote is not received before the deadline, 3) possible procedural errors on the day of the election, e.g. a voter has not left a ballot or two ballots clinging together were given to a voter, or 4) different recording errors. These random factors are not corrected in the data on votes cast.

The exact number of persons who voted or voting percentage in the elections cannot be extracted specifically at summary levels from the database tables concerning data on votes cast. The numbers of persons who voted presented in the tables describe the entries in the voting register. It is impossible to correct possible erroneous entries afterwards.

On the level of the whole country, the data on votes cast in the County elections correspond well with the result data of the election. The voting percentage calculated from the votes cast is 0.4 percentage points lower on the level of the whole country than in the whole country. On the regional level, the differences are biggest in the wellbeing services counties of South Karelia and Kymenlaakso, where the coverage of data on votes cast is the weakest in the data.

Voting turnout among young men was low

In the voting districts from which all voting data were available, 51.3 per cent of persons entitled to vote cast their vote. Women voted more actively than men in the County elections. In the areas, 54.2 per cent of women voted, the difference to men was 5.8 percentage points. Men's voting turnout exceeded women's in the age group of those aged 75 or over. In the under 92 age groups, voting turnout in the areas was lowest for men aged 21, altogether 23.9 per cent.

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Voting is more common in higher income brackets

The income level of those who voted and those entitled to vote is examined with the help of disposable monetary income. Income data derive from the latest confirmed taxation from 2023. Disposable monetary income refers to monetary income after taxes. This consist of earned income, property income, benefits in kind and transfer income.

The income of persons entitled to vote is divided into quintiles. Quintiles are derived by arranging persons entitled to vote by income and by dividing the group into five equal parts. The groups formed in this way include around 791,000 persons entitled to vote of all persons entitled to vote in the whole country. In the areas from which data were received on voting on the election day as well, the groups formed in this way included around 544,000 persons entitled to vote.

On the level of the whole country, income data are missing for approximately 13,400 persons entitled to vote. In the data for the areas containing election day votes, income data were missing for some 8,800 persons entitled to vote. The median for the disposable income of persons entitled to vote was around EUR 25,000 in the whole country and in the examined areas.

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The effect of income on voting turnout was clear for all who voted. As a rule, voting was more common in higher income brackets than in lower income brackets. Nearly 67.0 per cent of those entitled to vote belonging to the highest income quintile voted. In the lowest quintile, voting turnout was under 38 per cent. Thus, the difference in voting turnout between the lowest and highest income quintiles was 29 percentage points.

Highly educated and pensioners are active voters

Persons with lowest level tertiary or higher level of education voted more often than average. The voting percentage of persons with Master's or doctoral level education was 26.7 percentage points higher than that of all persons entitled to vote and 44.0 percentage points higher than that of persons only with basic level education.

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Lowest tertiary level qualifications decrease in the population and no new qualifications are completed in Finland in this category, so the age structure of the educational group differs clearly from other groups. Lowest tertiary level education covers qualifications above upper secondary level that are not university of applied sciences degrees.

In groups of main type of activity, advance voting was most common among pensioners. Altogether 39.9 per cent of pensioners voted in advance. In other groups of main type of activity, the share of advance voters was relatively smaller than among all persons entitled to vote.

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Pensioners were the most active voters in the areas, too. Of pensioners, 57.2 per cent voted in the elections. In all other groups of main type of activity apart from employed persons, voting turnout was below the level of all persons entitled to vote. Those in the inactive population had the lowest voting turnout, 26.2 per cent, among those whose main type of activity was known.

Voting turnout of persons with foreign background was low

In all, 53.1 per cent of Finnish and Sami speakers voted. Among the examined language groups, Swedish speakers had the highest voting turnout, 63.9 per cent. The voting turnout of foreign-language speakers was low, 21.0 per cent.

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The examination by origin does not change the picture formed based on language groups. The difference in voting turnout between persons of Finnish background and those of foreign background was 32.8 percentage points.