While in many municipalities large pieces of paper are still unfolded and folded again, counting in Tynaarlo is a lot faster. There they are one of the first municipalities with a smaller ballot paper and that is well received by both voters and counters.
The ballot papers are neatly displayed per polling station in the De Kamp sports hall in Vries. Last night the volunteers already counted at party level, today the preferential votes per candidate are being checked. And that goes smoothly, says Barbara Venema-Bolhuis, who counts votes here. “I find the small note very pleasant. It is easy to unfold, counting is faster and I think it also gives less chance of errors. You just stay fresher, because you spend less time fiddling with paper.”
The difference with the large ballot papers is clearly visible. Where the counters in Assen still have meters long forms on the table, in Tynaarlo everything fits neatly in a pile.
In Assen they still work with the old, familiar banknotes. That creates a standard image of large tables, buried under paper. Sjoege Wiersma, who counts votes there, can laugh about it. “The notes are not always handy, but we have large tables, so we just spread them out. The notes are much too big, for voting and for counting. But hey, you make do with what you have, right?”
Project leader Roderik de Haan would see advantages in the small ballot paper. “If it were possible, we would like to participate in the small ballot papers in the future. But it has to be done step by step, it has to be tested properly, even in large municipalities. And voters have to get used to it, we don’t want errors to occur because people are not familiar with the ballot.”
According to Dieke Westerveld, project leader for the elections in Tynaarlo, the reactions are mainly positive. “It’s easier in the voting booth, you don’t have to search like that anymore. It saves a lot of time for the counters. Of course, some voters had to get used to it, the ballot looks different from the long list they received at home. But with a good explanation, everyone came out.”
The trial is now running in five municipalities in the Netherlands. The Ministry of the Interior is investigating how voters and counters experience the new note. According to a spokesperson, the test will be repeated on a larger scale during the municipal elections.
The fact that it may take a while before the results are definitively known is certainly not Tynaarlo’s fault. Counting runs smoothly there, but the municipality of Tynaarlo was slower in counting last night than the municipality of Emmen. Westerveld laughs: “Emmen finished faster, but more people came to vote here. More votes means more counting, we think that is only positive.”