I voted today!
Now that I'm a Dutch citizen I am eligible to vote in the general elections for the first time!
It's comical how big the voting paper (stembiljet) is, but thankfully I'm old enough to have used paper maps, so I was able to easily re-fold it like a pro.
Photo by 1Veertje (CC-BY-SA 3.0)
@notjustbikes what is the election system?
Do you just select one candidate or do you prioritise more than one?
One candidate, who belongs to a party. If the candidate doesn't meet the voting threshold for a seat (common for everybody except the handful most popular ones) , the votes go to the party and are assigned according to the party list. Candidates that do make the threshold (rare, but I'm hoping we can get Barbara Kathman elected through these preference votes) are guaranteed one of the seats for their party.
But it's mostly just proportional representation.
@mcv @notjustbikes @UlrikNyman
Note that candidates only need to get 25% of the votes required for a seat to be bumped up their party's list.
@VincentTunru @UlrikNyman @notjustbikes
Are you sure? But then it's possible for more candidates to reach that 25% than the party has seats.
I'm fairly sure it used to be 100%, but I can imagine they lowered the threshold in order to encourage this.
@mcv @notjustbikes @UlrikNyman Fairly sure, yes, see also https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_lijst#Nederland
(It also says the threshold used to be 50%, though it's 100% for the Senate.)
I think your scenario will only ever be hypothetical (that needs a really even split of votes), but I imagine they will then get sorted by the number of votes and then cut off by the party's number of seats.
Not Just Bikes 🇳🇱
Ulrik Nyman ⬡
Martijn Vos
Vincent Tunru