Unlike with parliamentary elections, you do not have to be a Danish citizen to vote in regional elections (regionalvalg) or municipal elections (kommunalvalg), collectively known as lokalvalg or local elections.
Denmark has 98 municipalities and 5 regions (soon to be reduced to 4). The local elections elect representatives to both municipal councils and regional boards and take place at the same time. The elections take place every four years.
A municipality or kommune handles local services such as schools, childcare, elderly care, local roads and social services. A region is a larger administrative unit primarily responsible for healthcare, including hospitals, as well as regional development and planning. The difference is set out in more detail below.
If you are a foreign national living in Denmark, you may be able to vote in the upcoming local elections on November 18th.
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Municipalities (kommuner)
Denmark is organised into 98 different municipalities of varying sizes, for which municipal councils are elected every four years.
The primary task of municipalities is local administration of welfare and social needs. This encompasses social services, primary schooling and childcare, infrastructure, transportation, and tasks defined as integration of refugees and immigrants.
Other municipal areas include employment (such as running job centres), culture and leisure, setting up businesses, initiatives for children and young people, and city and rural fixtures and fittings.
In the municipal elections, candidates from various parliamentary parties as well as independents, non-parliamentary parties and local interest-based parties known as locallister (local lists) campaign on locally-tailored needs. The candidates from national parties largely follow the ideology of that party.
Regions (regioner)
The job description for regions involves healthcare, welfare, and social development.
The names of the five regions (Greater Copenhagen, Zealand, North Jutland, Central Jutland and South Denmark) are most commonly associated with hospital care and health care. If you want to know which region you’re in in Denmark, you’ll find its logo at the entrance to most hospitals or public health facilities.
The Zealand and Greater Copenhagen regions are to be merged into a single "East Denmark" megaregion, reducing the number of regions from five to four, the Ministry of the Interior and Health announced last year.
Regions – and their elected boards – administrate public hospitals and the GP system. They also orchestrate regional mass transit and manage initiatives to create economic growth.
As with the municipal elections, regional elections are held every four years with council members elected to the various governing bodies known as regionsråd or "Regional Boards". The five regions each encompass a larger number of municipalities.
“Most local politics are about very local issues,” Jakob Nielsen, editor-in-chief of Danish political news outlet Altinget, told The Local at a briefing ahead of the local elections in 2021.
“Vote as you would in any election for those you trust to do the most for the schools or the elderly, or to steer the local economy in a responsible way,” Nielsen said.
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