Denmark is set to decide its political direction for the next four years in a general election on March 24th.
Incumbent Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is being challenged by Troels Lund Poulsen, the leader of the Liberal party.
Poulsen, currently defence minister, wants to break the existing coalition with Frederiksen and lead a conservative government, although Denmark’s multi-party system means a whole range of permutations is possible for the next government, depending on the election outcome.
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Unlike in local elections, in which some foreign residents can vote, the right to vote in general elections is limited to Danish citizens only.
More specifically, voters must be over 18 years old on election day and Danish citizens as of January 1st, 2026 to be eligible to vote in the 2026 election.
Some 4,317,926 ballots – one for each voter – will be printed for the election, according to figures from Statistics Denmark.
The total includes 224,644 people who will be voting for the first time in 2026. This means that 5.2 percent of the eligible voters are first-time voters. The actual proportion of first-time voters will depend on turnout, of course.
While the majority of first-time voters are young people who celebrated their 18th birthday after the last election in late 2022, some are dual nationals who were granted citizenship in Denmark since the 2022 election.
According to Statistics Denmark, some 8,955 of the total 224,644 first-time voters were of voting age at the last election but have become citizens – thereby gaining voting rights – in the meantime.
People with foreign heritage comprise a much smaller proportion of the electorate compared to the population as a whole.
While 17.1 percent of the Danish population is classified as “immigrants and descendants” by Statistics Denmark, only 5.9 percent of eligible voters in the general election are in that category.
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