En valgordning til besvær? U30-regelens innvirkning på deltagelsen ved sametingsvalg

Abstract

A particular electoral rule (U30) in Sámi parliamentary elections in Norway requires that registered Sámi voters in municipalities with fewer than thirty eligible voters cast their votes in advance. In this chapter, I explore the questions of whether, how and why this rule has a negative effect on voter turnout. In order to answer these questions, I conduct an analysis of quantitative data from the official tally sheets of the 2017 Sámi parliamentary election in Norway and aggregate data from the official electoral rolls. In addition, I analyse qualitative data from interviews I conducted with registered Sámi voters in Southern Norway from a rational choice theory viewpoint. These analyses suggest that even after three Sámi parliamentary elections across a span of eight years, the U30 rule still has significant negative effects on voter turnout in the municipalities where it applies. Furthermore, while voter turnout in Sámi parliamentary elections in Norway tends to decline the further away from the Sámi heartlands one comes, an opposite pattern seems to apply among the municipalities subject to the U30 rule. Based on my analyses, I discuss the roles that logistics, a lack of information, political cleavages, demographic variations among the registered voters, and the municipal authorities themselves may play in enabling this decline in voter turnout, and the regional variations therein.