Swedish General Elections
AS OF 2026-08-30 · 51 CONTESTS · general election, 11 September 2022 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
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Every Swedish general election from the first Second Chamber of 1866 to September 2022: forty years of a franchise that reached one adult man in five, the proportional breakthrough of 1911, the Social Democratic century, the four per cent threshold that has shaped every result since 1970, and the arrival of a party the others spent a decade refusing to talk to.
Source: Wikipedia election articles · as of 2026-08-30
Riksdag seats
349
175 for a majority
Elections since 1866
51
Peak turnout
91.8%
1976, the year the Social Democrats finally lost
Latest
2022
Social Democrats (S) largest
The chronology
Every Swedish general election since the Second Chamber was created in 1866, newest first. The rows before 1970 are that chamber alone, elected on a franchise that only became universal in stages.
After the Sweden Democrats · 2014–2022
The Sweden Democrats entered the Riksdag in 2010 and every election since has turned on who will and will not deal with them. In 2022 they finished second with 20.5% and supported a government from outside it under a written agreement, the arrangement that ended thirty years of the parties refusing to speak to them.
The bloc years · 1991–2010
A banking crisis, an EU referendum and the arrival and departure of New Democracy broke the old five-party arrangement. From 2006 the four centre-right parties campaigned as a single Alliance and won twice, which is the only time the Swedish right has managed consecutive terms.
One chamber · 1970–1988
The upper house was abolished in 1970 and the whole Riksdag was elected at once, on a four per cent threshold that has shaped Swedish politics ever since. Turnout peaked at 91.8% in 1976, the year the Social Democrats finally lost, and the nuclear referendum and the wage-earner funds dominated the decade that followed.
Folkhemmet · 1921–1968
The Social Democrats came first at every one of these fourteen elections and governed for all but a handful of the years between them, the longest continuous run of any democratic party in Europe. Per Albin Hansson's phrase for it, the people's home, described a project that ran from pensions and housing to the supplementary pension fight of 1957 to 1960. Turnout climbed from 55% to 89% across the period.
The democratic breakthrough · 1911–1920
Proportional representation arrived in 1909 and universal male suffrage with it, and the first PR election in 1911 immediately tripled the Social Democratic vote. The constitutional crisis of 1914 produced two elections in one year, the second of which the Social Democrats won. Parliamentary government was conceded in 1917 and the franchise was extended to women in 1921.
The Second Chamber · 1866–1908
The four-estate Riksdag was replaced in 1866 by two chambers, the second of them elected on an income and property qualification that left about a fifth of adult men on the register and a far smaller share actually voting. Turnout below 25% was normal. The Lantmanna Party of the landowning farmers dominated the chamber and the great argument of the period was free trade against protection, which produced two elections in 1887 and settled nothing.
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout since 1911
From 57% at the first proportional election to 91.8% in 1976, then a slow decline to the mid eighties, which is still among the highest voluntary turnouts in the world.
The Social Democratic share
Above 40% at every election from 1932 to 1994 and never below 28% since. The line falls, but it has never stopped being the largest.
Records & superlatives
Highest turnout
91.8%
1976, of the elections with a recorded figure
Lowest turnout
19.1%
1872
Highest vote share
58.6%
Free traders, March 1887
Most seats won
166
Swedish Social Democratic Party, 1982
The threshold
4%
in force at every election since the chamber was unified in 1970
Social Democratic firsts
38
the party has come first at every election since 1917
How Swedish elections work
Proportional representation with a four per cent threshold
310 constituency seats and 39 adjustment seats are allocated by the modified Sainte-Lague method, so the national result is close to the national vote. A party needs 4% nationally, or 12% in a single constituency, to take part at all.
A fixed date, and an early election that does not reset it
Sweden votes on the second Sunday of September every fourth year. A government may call an extra election, but the Riksdag it produces serves only the remainder of the term, which is why Sweden has had so few.
The bicameral era
Until 1970 the Riksdag had two chambers and only the second was elected directly, in staggered rotation, on an income and property franchise until 1911. The rows before 1970 are that chamber, and the turnout figures beneath them belong to a much smaller electorate.
Blocs, not coalitions
Swedish governments are usually minorities that legislate deal by deal. What decides an election is which side can assemble a Riksdag majority against the other, which is why the arithmetic on this page matters more than the winner.