Text message reminders increased voter turnout in 2025 county and municipal elections

A text message pilot carried out in connection with the 2025 county and municipal elections showed that text message reminders with information about elections increase voter turnout. The results confirm earlier findings on the effectiveness of text message reminders.

In the text message pilot carried out in connection with the 2025 county and municipal elections, a reminder to vote in the elections was sent to over 345,000 eligible voters. The target group consisted of eligible voters residing in municipalities that use the electronic voting register. 

A randomly selected group representing around one fifth of all Finnish and Swedish-speaking eligible voters in these municipalities received a text message reminder, while the control group did not. 

The study found that the reminders raised voter turnout to a statistically significant extent among both young and older voters. Voter turnout increased among Finnish and Swedish speakers aged under 30 by an average of around 0.9 percentage points and among older voters by an average of around 0.7 percentage points. For older voters, the effects were most pronounced in groups with low voter turnout.

Use of voters’ mother tongue and spillover effects enhance impact of reminders

In respect of foreign language speakers, the study also examined the significance of the language of the message. In a group consisting of speakers of the 21 most common foreign languages registered as a mother tongue in Finland, one third received the text message reminder in Finnish and Swedish, one third received it in their mother tongue and in Finnish, and one third acted as a control group.