News item | 10-11-2023 | 2:45 PM
There will be a higher penalty for recruiting proxy votes. The penalty increases from a maximum of one month’s detention to a maximum of six months’ imprisonment. It also provides a clearer and sharper definition of what is meant by recruitment. This bill also makes it a punishable offense to call people online to hand over their power of attorney. This is stated in the bill by Minister De Jonge of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, which is now being sent to the Council of State for advice. This way, in the future, the recruitment of proxy votes can be tackled more quickly and punished more severely.
A voter must be able to decide for himself how to use his voting right without coercion. If you do not want or cannot go to the polling station yourself during elections, you can ask someone else to vote for you: give someone a power of attorney. The basic principle is that the initiative to issue a proxy must always come from the voter himself. Recruiting proxy votes is contrary to this principle, because in recruiting the initiative lies with the person who is trying to obtain a proxy from someone else. This must therefore be dealt with more effectively. Research by the Electoral Council shows that in practice this is difficult to really tackle and punish. This is harmful to democracy and that is why the government proposes to adjust the description of the offense, to designate the recruitment of proxy votes as a crime and to increase the penalty.
Current description of the crime
The bill updates the definition of recruitment. Currently, the legal description of the offense is based on the classic form of recruitment: collecting power of attorney door-to-door and in person. Recruitment must also be ‘systematic’ to be punishable. This bill will soon also include other forms of recruitment, such as addressing a group of people on a one-off basis with the call to provide proxy votes, or posting a message to that effect on social media.
Minister De Jonge: “The old article is no longer up to date and was aimed at actions in which doors were systematically visited for proxies. Nowadays, the risk lies more in online calls, which are not always ‘systematic’ and ‘personal’, but are very accessible and therefore dangerous for our democracy. By tightening the law, we want to classify the large gray area that currently exists into a sharper black and white.”
Adjustment of the threshold for the allocation of a residual seat
The bill also adjusts the threshold for awarding a residual seat. Soon, a political party will first have to obtain a seat on its own (100% of the electoral quota) before it is eligible for a residual seat. This has already been arranged for House of Representatives elections. The bill ensures that this will also apply to other elections (with the exception of the election for the Senate). The purpose of this change is to prevent fragmentation, facilitate coalition formation and strengthen governance at a decentralized level.
The bill is now being submitted to the Council of State for advice, and it is expected that the bill can then be presented to the House of Representatives in the spring.