Norwegian local elections, 2011

Nationwide local elections for seats in municipality and county councils were held throughout Norway on 12 September 2011. Several municipalities also opened the polling booths on 11 September. For mostpolling stations this meant that two elections, the municipal elections and the county elections ran concurrently. In addition, an advisory referendum was held in Aust-Agder to determine whether to merge the county with Vest-Agder.

Overall, the Conservative Party made the greatest gains, and the Labour Party also advanced and remained the largest party. On the other hand, the Progress Party and the Socialist Left Party suffered severe setbacks.

Electronic voting over the internet was tried out in certain areas for the first time in Norway, with the ultimate goal of implementing full general availability for internet voting for the 2017 parliamentary elections.

In 2008, Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa, the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development announced that she was considering lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 in some municipalities as a trial. Three municipalities had applied for this in the 2007 election, but were turned down.

Parliament decided to give adolescents of age 16 and 17 the right to vote in selected municipalities. Of 143 applicants, 20 municipalities plus Longyearbyen on Svalbard were selected for the trial. The municipalities taking part in the trial are:

The issue of how and when the campaign would be conducted was affected by the 2011 Norway attacks on 22 July, which killed 77 people, most of them young supporters of the national Labour Party. On 24 July, the prime minister, the president of the Storting, and the parliamentary leaders of the political parties met for the first time to discuss rules for the political debates which would take place. Liv Signe Navarsete predicted that the election campaign would be considerably muted. On 25 July, the parliamentary leaders of the political parties agreed to delay the start of the campaign until mid-August and to cancel the school debates, because of the 22 July attacks. The school elections were, however, not cancelled.

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