Sweden's Pirate Party was optimistic about its chances leading up to yesterday's general election, but the results are in and it doesn't look good for the upstart political movement. Under current election procedures, you need at least 4 percent of the national votes or 12 percent in any one electoral district to qualify for a parliamentary seat, and the Pirate Party came up short with only 0.6 percent of the national vote.

Four districts gave the party more than a 1 percent share, but none of those tallies exceeded 2 percent. Just days before the election, Pirate Party press releases said that the party was "stronger than ever," that the party had more members than three of the largest alternative parties combined, and that it should snag at least a 5 percent national share. As vote counts roll in today, 4,810 votes cast for the party (links to material in Swedish) placed it firmly on a benchwarmer's seat, behind one of the parties it dissed last week, and below the total of 12,577 blank votes cast. The 822 districts counted at the time of writing was enough for Prime Minister Göran Persson to tender his resignation. More on that later.

It's unfortunate to see the party fall short of its goals, and party leaders are placing some of the blame on unfair procedures. "We have received reports of voters who were told that blank ballots will become invalid if anything is written on them," says Pirate Party leader Rickard Falkvinge. "We saw reports of election officials who moved ballots for all non-parliament parties to a spot outside the polling place. Unfortunately, overall reports point to obvious problems with democratic election procedures." Writing in your own candidate or party on a blank ballot does not, in fact, invalidate the vote. Sour grapes or legitimate complaints? I'm sure there will be formal complaints and official investigations to settle that question.

In the bigger picture, Sweden is in for some changes. The moderately leftist Social Democratic Party has ruled the country alone or in coalitions continuously since 1994, and only 9 years since 1930 have seen a right-wing Prime Minister. The right-wing coalition swept the board this time, and the Social Democrats turned in their weakest election in decades. Election turnout came in a 80.13 percent, up 0.95 percentage points from four years ago, and leaving the "record-setting" 60.7 percent of the 2004 US general election in the dust. Continuing an age-old tradition, variations of the Donald Duck Party got 10 votes.