Our electoral system, at least as far as parliamentary elections are concerned, is based on converting vote numbers into seats using a calculation method drawn up last century by the Ghent professor Victor D’hondt. Our electoral system, at least as far as parliamentary elections are concerned, is based on converting vote numbers into seats using a calculation method drawn up last century by the Ghent professor Victor D’hondt.
Seat assignments
Seat allocations are first made at constituency level. Here parties can win their first seats based on their electoral figures. The seats not directly allocated then enter a kind of provincial pot, and are further allocated on the basis of the provincial assessment. However, there are some comments.
Quorum
Firstly, not everyone can just play at provincial level. For this, one must achieve the provincial quorum, currently determined as 33% of the electoral quota (as far as parliamentary elections are concerned). This quorum must be achieved in one district of the province, but it undeniably works to the advantage of the larger parties. After all, this quorum, although expressed in a percentage, can largely be regarded as an absolute threshold. And the smaller the electoral description, the smaller the chance of crossing the threshold. By dividing provinces into electoral districts, it becomes more difficult for a small party to gain seats. Consequently, it can be said that large parties can easily gain one seat, or even two, per province through this system. And that’s not the end of it yet. After all, D’hondt is not just applied once, but per province. At the federal level, therefore, 10 times, which without too many problems can lead to 10 seats, even more, which are kept out of the hands of small parties and transferred to the large parties by the D’hondt calculation method.
Many-party system
Because the Dutch electoral system works according to proportional representation, this results in a many-party system in which no party has a majority and coalition governments have to be formed. The question is always which parties will come into government. It therefore makes little sense to put forward possible ministers at an early stage. (In addition, specialists from outside politics are often recruited as ministers.) The district system leads to one party obtaining an absolute majority in parliament and in practice to a two-party system. During elections, either the incumbent government is maintained or the so-called shadow government, which was presented as an alternative during election time, takes office.
Calculation
You get a seat for every certain number of votes. Couple:
- 250 votes -> 5 seats
- 300 votes -> 6 seats
- 350 votes -> 7 seats
- 400 votes -> 8 seats
- 450 votes -> 9 seats
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The mood: |
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VVD |
D’66 |
PvdA |
|
483 |
320 |
397 |
1200 people can vote for: VVD, PvdA and D66.
VVD then gets 9 seats, D66 gets 6 and the PvdA gets 7.
The voting is therefore fair, the one with the most votes gets the most seats, unless one party has 300. votes and the other 34 9, because then they both get 6 seats while one has received more votes.