Candidates

In the elections to the European Parliament, the whole of Finland is just one single electoral district. This means that voters can vote for any candidate in Finland.

The list of candidates will be published at the beginning of May 2014. Based on earlier elections, it is estimated that there will be over 200 candidates.

To make it easier for you to choose, you can learn about the various parties in advance. Every party has its own values that they support. At the same time, you can follow the Finnish media to see how the parties are handling things. When you have chosen your party, you only have to choose from among 20 candidates. This is the maximum number of candidates any party may nominate for the European parliamentary elections.

An easy way of getting to know the candidates is to use a web-based voting advice application.

The application asks you a number of questions. You choose whether you ‘Fully disagree’ or ‘Fully agree’ or something in between. Almost all the candidates answer these same questions. The application compares your answers to those given by the candidates and lists those nearest to yours. Finally, the application shows the candidates closest to you and what they stand for. You will also see the percentage of matching answers.

Lista kaikista vaalikoneista.

Voting advice applications open soon after the candidates have been nominated.

The best-known voting advice applications are:

YLE:https://vaalikone.yle.fi/

MTV3:http://www.mtv3.fi/vaalit/