Voting in Advance
The advance voting begins on Wednesday eleven days before election day, and ends abroad on Saturday eight days and in Finland on Tuesday five days before election day.
General advance polling stations where any person entitled to vote may do so are in Finland municipal offices and post-offices determined by municipalities and abroad Finnish embassies prescribed in decree. In every municipality there is at least one such polling station. In Finland special advance polling stations are hospitals, prisons and some other institutions where only the people who receive treatment or are incarcerated there may vote. In addition, people whose ability to move or function is so restricted that they are unable to come to an advance polling station or a polling station on election day may vote in advance at home, i.e. an election commissioner comes to them to receive their vote. The crew of a Finnish ship abroad may vote in advance on board the ship. The advance voting in ships can begin already on the 18th day before election day.
At the advance polling station the voter first has to show an identity card to the election commissioner who checks the voting register to see that he/she is entitled to vote. Next the election commissioner hands over an election envelope and a ballot to the voter who in a polling booth writes the number of the candidate he/she wants to vote for on the ballot. In the polling booth is a combined list of candidates with all the candidates and their numbers. The ballot then has to be folded so that the number can not be seen, after which it is presented to the election commissioner who stamps it. After this the voter seals the ballot in the brown election envelope and signs a covering letter. Finally, the election commissioner seals the election envelope (with the ballot inside) and the covering letter in a covering envelope, which is posted to the central election committee of the municipality of the voter. The central election committee opens the covering envelopes and all election envelopes (which are not opened) are gathered together and sent to be counted to the electoral district committee.
