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Election Special: Observing the Netherlands 2025
27 Plays23 days ago
In this special episode recorded on location in The Hague, Joshua interviews Harry Bush about Democracy Volunteers' seventh observation mission to the Netherlands. Harry explains how Dutch elections work differently from the UK—the entire country acts as a single 150-seat constituency using proportional representation, with voters choosing both a party and a candidate from lists of up to 80 names. This creates ballot papers so massive that counting them used to take hours just to unfold, leading five municipalities to trial smaller designs.
The conversation examines two key electoral integrity challenges: proxy voting, where 10% of Dutch votes are cast by someone else (voters can carry up to two additional polling cards on election day), and accessibility, which varies widely because voters can use any polling station in their municipality rather than being assigned to one. Despite these issues, Dutch elections achieve 80% turnout and demonstrate strong civic engagement, offering valuable lessons for democracies worldwide.
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Transcript
Introduction to Dutch Elections
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome to the land of mayonnaise and chips, as well as massive ballot papers. Yes, we are in the Netherlands. I'm joined by Harry Bush to have a little chat about our observation.
00:00:20
Speaker
So how was the observation democracy volunteers? on wednesday So this was democracy volunteers. seventh observation of Dutch elections. We've been here over previous years observing waterboard elections, municipal elections and general elections as well.
Purpose of Dutch Election Observations
00:00:38
Speaker
um And the whole point of our observation here in the Netherlands is to provide feedback and recommendations for the Kieserad, who are the Electoral Council, sort of equivalent to the Electoral Commission. yeah in the u k
00:00:52
Speaker
but also to local municipales on how we believe the process could be improved in the future um and also to learn more about how elections are conducted in other countries outside the United Kingdom to help that come into our feedback when we observe in the UK.
Understanding the Dutch Electoral System
00:01:06
Speaker
Fantastic and for people who are watching who don't know how the Dutch system actually works could you give a little bit of an explainer on how it's different to the British system? Yes, so it's one of the things that we brief all of our observers on before election day. and Obviously, the Netherlands has a very different electoral system to that which our observers will be used to from the UK. um Those that observe in other elections across Europe will be a little bit more familiar with with how this works, and but essentially rather than having first-past-the-post, as we do in the UK, where there's defined geographical boundary and then the winner takes it all, um the whole country acts as a single constituency.
00:01:47
Speaker
with 150 members to be elected to the second chamber and there is a quota or and an electoral threshold which is worked out using something called the de Honk formula and any party that hits that number of votes gets one seat so it means that there is um ah more proportional reflection in parliament of the actual number of votes that were given And that voting process, how does it change for the every person?
00:02:14
Speaker
How does it actually change the way that they vote when they're in the polling station? So in the context of the Netherlands, the main difference that people have is that they will be voting for not just a party, but also a candidate within that party. So in the Netherlands, there's open or semi-open lists, which essentially means that parties put forward a slate of candidates, up to 80 for some parties and up to fifty for others, just depending on how well they did at the previous election.
00:02:41
Speaker
And then voters can either vote for a party or they can vote for a party and a candidate, which essentially means that if one candidate gets a certain threshold of votes, then they can essentially jump up the list and they can be one of the sort of higher people who would get into Parliament yeah as an individual in that party as well.
00:03:00
Speaker
So it changes the voter experience.
Efforts to Improve Voting Experience
00:03:02
Speaker
One of the main things, as you mentioned in your introduction, Joshua, is this means a very very large ballot paper because there are there were over a thousand candidates on polling day um not all standing in every ah district but it means that there are lots and lots candidates choose from lots of different political parties and the main outcome for post-election is that there is always essentially in second chamber elections in the Netherlands a coalition of parties and so something a little bit more similar to what you would expect in ah in European mainland election compared to a UK election or a US election. Yeah.
00:03:38
Speaker
Is the Dutch authority taking any measures to change the ballot papers in any way? Yes, so one of the the biggest changes that's been in for the first time at these general elections, which has also been trialled previously at municipal elections, is that there are five different local areas across the Netherlands that were using a smaller version of the ballot paper.
00:03:58
Speaker
So for those who haven't seen the Dutch ballot paper before, I do encourage you to to go and have look online, but they tend to be very, very large, almost almost too big to to handle. off and And so what the authorities have decided is that it would be more useful to have a smaller ballot paper for the ease of voters, but also for the ease of people who have to count ballot papers.
00:04:20
Speaker
Because at previous elections, you would see that the first hour or two hours of counting is literally just unfolding these massive ballot papers. So there were five local areas that were trialling for the second time following their trials at the municipal elections last year, these smaller ballot papers.
00:04:38
Speaker
And they work slightly differently in that you vote at the top for a party and then for a candidate underneath. But you just have the however many parties are standing in that area. um In most areas, this was sort of 20 to 22. different parties, ah sometimes a few more, and then you would have the numbers 1 to 80 on the bottom. So you would pick a party and then pick a candidate.
00:05:00
Speaker
One of the main things that they're looking for, both at the Kieserad, but also more broadly across election administration in the Netherlands, is how many votes cast with the new ballot paper are going to be in because people have filled them in incorrectly.
00:05:15
Speaker
So if, for example, somebody voted for a party which only stood 30 candidates, but they put that party, and then the number 32, that would be an invalid ballot. And if somebody only voted for a candidate, but no party, then that would also be invalid.
Challenges of Proxy Voting
00:05:28
Speaker
So at the most recent elections, the municipal elections where this was planned for the first time, the number of invalid ballots was 0.7% compared to with the old ballot paper, the one that was still mainly in use this time, but the old ballot paper was 0.17%.
00:05:43
Speaker
So they're looking to see how many fewer, hopefully, invalid ballots will be cast this time, with a lot of voter education in the polling stations with the smaller ballot papers, to see if it's something that could be rolled out across the whole country. Yeah.
00:05:56
Speaker
And proxy voting is an area which democracy volunteers in their previous missions the Netherlands has identified as an area which can be taken advantage of. What's democracy volunteers' observation of proxy voting in this recent election?
00:06:08
Speaker
So proxy voting is something which happens in lots of countries. It happens in the UK. People are able to to to act as a proxy, which essentially means that somebody is casting a vote on behalf of somebody else.
00:06:21
Speaker
um And as mentioned, you can do that in the UK before the election if you apply for that. If somebody's not able to to get into a polling station for whatever reason and they don't want to cast a postal vote, then that's something that can happen.
00:06:34
Speaker
The difference in the Netherlands is that it's sort of more of a cultural norm to to vote by proxy. So about 10% of all votes cast at second chamber elections are cast by proxy. So if somebody else has cast them on behalf of someone.
00:06:50
Speaker
There are two different ways that people can apply for a proxy vote. The first one is more similar to the UK and that you would apply before the election to your local municipality um and you would be able to receive proxy vote in that way.
00:07:04
Speaker
The one that is slightly different and more unique to the Netherlands is that everybody who goes to vote on the day requires a STEM pass, which is essentially a polling card um that's collected when you vote and you take that in your ID to be able to vote. If you take your own STEM pass and then up to two other STEM passes,
00:07:21
Speaker
and a copy of that other person's ID, then you can essentially vote as long as they've signed the back of their STEM pass to say that you can and vote on their behalf. So you could realistically, and you see fairly common, one person casting three ballots, their own, and for two other electors.
00:07:37
Speaker
um It's something which is is challenging and and is brought up by the multi-volunteers, but also other and election observation groups um as being challenging because you are essentially removing that person's right to a secret ballot because somebody else is casting that vote on their behalf. And and i you know I would hope that if I asked and yourself, Joshua, or say, my mum's going cast a ballot on my behalf on the day that they would do what you wanted them to do.
00:08:05
Speaker
and but and would realistically that's not always going to be the case and and it is open to to slightly more of a risk of people selling off their votes um you know if you were somebody who wasn't going to vote in the election anyway somebody one of your family members you might just give them your stem pass and they might be able to go and vote for whoever they want twice so there are challenges to this um there is a piece of legislation which uh the key shroud and the authorities hope will be in place by the next elections which reduces the number of proxy votes an elector is allowed to but to do from two to one and but it is something that is quite culturally ingrained yeah in Dutch elections and it's something which is a slight challenge to electoral integrity because of the
Accessibility and Inclusivity in Dutch Elections
00:08:52
Speaker
secretive ballot. yeah
00:08:53
Speaker
And another area is accessibility to polling stations which is really important. What was the observation of how accessible these polling stations was for everyone? yeah something monster about Accessibility is something that we we look at all elections because obviously it's very important that people are allowed to independently go into a polling place, cast their ballot, um whether that's because they have a physical disability and or whether that's because they're blind or sighted or whatever it may be.
00:09:21
Speaker
It's quite different to the UK in the fact that people in the Netherlands can vote at any polling station in their municipality. um So it's it's not unique at all in terms of particularly European elections.
00:09:33
Speaker
ah But if we do have viewers who are watching from the UK, I know we have lots of people from all around the world, but if you are from the UK, you'll be more used to, I have to vote in this polling station um because of the way that we do our registration of voters.
00:09:46
Speaker
In the Netherlands, because you can vote anywhere in your municipality, which range from a few polling stations to hundreds of different polling stations if you're in a big city, like we're in the the Hague Council building at the moment, um different polling stations will have different levels of accessibility.
00:10:02
Speaker
The standpoint from key strand from the ministry is that they want all polling stations to be fully accessible, but certain polling stations will have different pieces of kit. Some will have enhanced accessibility. Maybe they'll have an audio box.
00:10:14
Speaker
ah Maybe they'll have what we would call a tactile voting device, which in the UK is a very small piece of plastic, but over here is a massive piece of wood with thousands of different braille candidates on it. um So accessibility varies quite a lot more. There are obviously certain areas of the country, ah for example Amsterdam, where a lot of the buildings are quite difficult to make accessible.
00:10:35
Speaker
and But because you're allowed to vote at any of the polling stations, it's something where voters can go online and they can see what accessibility is going to be like at each of the polling stations in their local area.
Continuous Improvement in Election Processes
00:10:47
Speaker
um So it's something that we we keep track of and we'll be talking more about in in our report, especially looking over time over the last seven elections, how accessibility has improved in the Netherlands. Yes.
00:10:57
Speaker
I'm beginning to wrap up. Can you identify some of the big takeaways from this observation on Wednesday? And where can people find out? Yeah, absolutely. So we will be releasing our report in five to six weeks ah following this election. It's been a really interesting observation for us because we have been focusing specifically on media, social media, ah legislation, the campaigns a lot more than we would ah previously on our deployments. So we're trying to get more of a wholesome overview of the whole electoral cycle. cycle and So that report will be out in a few weeks' time. and It will be on our website, demoxyvolunteers.org.
00:11:31
Speaker
um There have been quite a lot of takeaways. I think that one of the main things is that elections in the Netherlands are very well run. It's obviously an advanced democracy.
00:11:45
Speaker
um There is a great culture around elections over here. So turnout is normally around 80%, which is something that I think, having observed a lot of UK elections, yeah i mean, I was in Kairphilly last week where turnout was one of the highest it's been in. but it was still nowhere near what we've seen over here.
00:12:04
Speaker
So there's a lot of civic engagement from people ah around elections. ah There's a lot of staff who work on these elections make sure that they are as free and fair as they could be.
00:12:14
Speaker
um A lot of polling stations having six or seven members of staff who are very well trained, very able to stop some of the issues that we've seen happening. more commonly in other countries around things like family voting, people being confused at polling stations, um and then obviously they're also a country which is very open to to new trials and to trying to improve their democracy.
00:12:36
Speaker
One of the things that ah oxygen volunteers have been talking about for a long time is how a lot of countries that are signatory to the copenhagen agreement of 1990 to permit for observation domestic observation groups and international observation don't fully live up to those standards but the netherlands is one of those countries similar to the uk that does and so are you going to name drop the ones that don't i'm not going to name the ones that don't um they know who they are um but it's it's great to come to a country where the Kisrad, where the Ministry and where individual municipalities probably know that they're conducting very good elections but still want to learn to try and improve the experience of voters and improve accessibility and security.
Conclusion and Podcast Promotion
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, perfect.
00:13:18
Speaker
I think that's all we have time for. Thank you very much for joining me, Harry. Brilliant. And thank you for listening. You can see our podcast observations on Spotify and YouTube. Thank you.