Elections in the Netherlands

Elections in the Netherlands are held for five territorial levels of government: the European Union, the state, the twelve Provinces, the 21 water boards and the 342 municipalities (and the three public bodies in the Caribbean Netherlands). Apart from elections, referendums were also held occasionally, but have been removed from the law in 2018. The most recent national election results and an overview of the resulting seat assignments and coalitions since World War II are shown at the bottom of this page.

At the national level, legislative power is invested in the States General (Staten-Generaal), which is bicameral. The House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) has 150 members, elected for a four-year term by proportional representation. Elections are also called after a dissolution of the House of Representatives. All elections are direct, except for the Senate (Eerste Kamer), which has 75 members, elected for a four-year term by provincial councillors on the basis of proportional representation at the provincial elections.

The Netherlands has a multi-party system, with numerous parties, in which usually no one party ever secures an overall majority of votes (except occasionally in very small municipalities, such as Tubbergen), so that several parties must cooperate to form a coalition government. This usually includes the party supported by a plurality of voters, with only three exceptions since World War II, in 1971, 1977 and 1982, when the Labour Party (PvdA) was the largest party but did not take part in the coalition.

Candidates to the elections of the House of Representatives are chosen from party lists according to a system of party-list proportional representation. The threshold is 1/150th of the total number of valid votes.

During the municipal elections of 2006, elections were electronic throughout the country. As a result, results were known before the end of the day, a mere two hours after the closing of the poll stations. 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. Since then, most elections have been held using paper and pencil.