No more voting on ‘billiard cloth’: trial with small ballot paper in European elections | Politics

Residents of Alphen aan den Rijn and Midden-Delfland in South Holland, Brabant Boekel, Borne in Overijssel and Tynaarlo in Drenthe no longer have to unfold a sheet of wallpaper in size on June 6. The approximately 160,000 voters receive a much smaller form at the polling station, size A3 – slightly larger than a normal sheet of paper. “That is infinitely simpler, infinitely more convenient and infinitely easier,” says Minister Hugo de Jonge of the Interior (CDA), who is responsible for the experiment.

To gain space, the names of all candidates are deleted from the ballot paper. The candidates will hang their name and number in a folder on the back wall of the voting booth. The voter only crosses the party name and number on the much smaller ballot. Anyone who votes has to perform more actions.

If only the party’s box is turned red, the vote is not invalid, De Jonge emphasizes. “Then the vote automatically goes to number 1 on the candidate list.”

Afterwards, the CDA minister says, it will be examined whether party leaders receive more votes in this way than in other elections. It is also evaluated whether more invalid votes are cast and voters can share their experiences after voting.

In recent years, the ballot paper has grown in size. Every candidate from each party must be on the ballot, that takes up space. While eighteen parties participated in the 2010 House of Representatives elections, there were 37 in the 2021 elections, a post-war record. Last November, 26 parties were on the form.

Due to the large number of parties, voters complained: the print became smaller and it proved complicated to fold the ballot again so that it fit into the opening of the ballot box. “That enormous billiard cloth is not user-friendly,” says De Jonge. “Certainly not for the elderly and visually impaired.”

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The size of the ballot paper also caused problems counting the votes, which took much more time due to the large sheets and poor readability. The new, compact ballot paper should also make that easier.

That’s why municipalities stood in a line for this test, says the minister. Ultimately, four small municipalities were not chosen, as was previously the plan. “In order to be able to take the step to all municipalities with confidence, I asked if Alphen aan den Rijn also wanted to participate. That is a large municipality with more than a hundred thousand inhabitants.”

Because if the test is successful, everyone will vote on a smaller ballot paper in the 2026 municipal elections. From five to all 342 municipalities is a big step, De Jonge acknowledges. “Initially the idea was to try it out on a bigger scale at the next election. But then it takes so long before we actually introduce the new voting form.” After all, a new ballot paper has been discussed since 2012.

Municipal club VNG and Dutch Association for Civil Affairs (NVVB) are happy that there is finally experimenting with such a smaller banknote, but wonder whether one successful test ‘can immediately lead to a national introduction’. They do argue for ‘accelerated scaling up’, if the evaluation is positive.

The compact voting form has another advantage: in the future the sheet will also fit in a counting machine. According to De Jonge, it is ‘a huge wish’ to ‘eventually count electronically’. “Because counting votes is such a hassle now.”

If it were up to VNG and NVVB, says a spokesperson, this would already happen at the next elections. “The combination of the small ballot paper with electronic counting really improves and facilitates the counting of the votes cast.”

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