Elections in the Netherlands

At the national level, legislative power is vested in the States General, which is bicameral.

The House of Representatives has 150 members elected for a four-year term by proportional representation.

Candidates to the elections of the House of Representatives are chosen from party lists according to a system of party-list proportional representation.

For the national elections in November of that same year, however, several polling stations decided to return to paper and red pencil because of security issues with the voting machines.

Regular elections, i.e. after the House of Representatives has fulfilled its term, take place in March.

[2] If the House of Representatives is dissolved prematurely, due to a severe conflict between the House of Representatives and cabinet, or within the cabinet, a snap election takes place as soon as possible, usually after two months to give parties time to prepare.

The term of the next House can be shortened or prolonged by almost a year to ensure the next normal election again takes place in March or May.

The Senate can be dissolved, and subsequently snap elections take place, but since the provincial councils remain the same, this seldom occurs.

The House of Representatives is elected using an open party list system of proportional representation.

When arriving at a voting station, voters hand in their card or pass to one of the three attendants of the voting station, who checks the card, cancels it, issues ballot papers to the voter, and directs him or her to the polling booth.

For mayoral and provincial gubernatorial positions, the Netherlands is one of the few countries in Europe where no elections are held.

The preliminary results are generally known around midnight and announced the next morning, after which the 150 seats are allocated.

[7] Since the election threshold is equal to the quota, that is also the number of votes required to get one seat in the House of Representatives.

The largest result ever was at the 1989 elections, when the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) got 35.3% of the votes.

The biggest difference between the first and second party was at the 2002 elections, the most dramatic elections in Dutch history, when especially the PvdA lost many votes to the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF), which became second biggest after CDA with 17.0% of the votes.

For the purpose of general elections, the Netherlands is divided into twenty electoral districts.

If one of these elected candidates later decides to leave parliament, then his seat is assigned to the next person on the list of the district he 'represents'.

Professor Rudy Andeweg says this is close to fraud because the law requires someone on the candidate list to declare in writing to be willing to fill a seat.

The members of each water board are divided into four categories: inhabitants, agriculture, nature and commercial.

Originally expected to take place in 2025, a snap election was called after the fourth Rutte cabinet collapsed on 7 July 2023 due to immigration policy disagreements between the coalition parties.