Rens Raemakers advocates that every Dutch person should be allowed to color three boxes red in future elections for the House of Representatives. ‘You force the voter to look further down the list.’
During the last elections, it was the Ministry of the Interior that warned voters not to fall for the fake message that two boxes had to be colored red to vote for GroenLinks-PvdA. No, coloring in one box was just enough.
Yet my proposal is that from now on every Dutch person should be allowed to color not two, but three boxes red during elections for the House of Representatives. This allows two problems to be solved at the same time.
First of all, there is the problem that party leaders are particularly well-known, and voters of candidates lower on the list of voters hardly know who they are.
91 percent for Wilders
In the last House of Representatives elections, 91 percent of PVV voters voted for Geert Wilders, 90 percent of NSC voters for Pieter Omtzigt and 85 percent of VVD voters for Dilan Yesilgöz.
Frans Timmermans of GroenLinks-PvdA is of course the exception with 46 percent, but that may be because that combination participated in the elections as a ‘merger party’. The top candidates still received quite a lot of votes at GL-PvdA, but also at other parties.
But a vote for a candidate lower on the list is much less common. Only one candidate who would otherwise not have been elected was chosen on the basis of preferential voting in the recent elections.
Spreading as an option
The electoral system should therefore be adapted accordingly. By giving voters the option to cast three votes, you force them to look further down the list. The voter can then choose to cast three votes for three people from the same party, or choose to spread them over three parties, or a combination of both.
Because there is a second problem: that the voter can make a choice for a party, but not for a desired party combination. There are many voters who ultimately vote strategically and/or hesitate between two or three parties until the last minute.
By offering the opportunity to cast three votes, voters can express their preference for a desired coalition. For example: a voter votes PVV twice and BBB once. Or once GL-PvdA, once D66 and once Volt.
Anyway, more choice
If a voter is completely convinced of one party, all three votes can of course go to the same party. But then the voter must check three different boxes (and therefore three different people). In any case, citizens have more choice.
This change in the electoral system could have additional benefits. Parties that are close to each other are less likely to argue with each other because they also want to show that they can work well together after the elections.
Candidates among themselves (from the same party or from other parties) can also enter into alliances. This dynamic could also lead to more connection.
Choose theme-based
Voters can even choose theme-based MPs: suppose they find youth care important, then they can vote for candidates who profile themselves accordingly.
Of course: it will take some getting used to coloring three boxes red instead of one. Some people will probably leave it at one box.
My proposal would be to also accept one or two boxes as valid votes, but to encourage voting for three candidates; those votes then count extra heavily. Otherwise there will be no incentive for everyone to participate.
More votes, more MPs
If the voter were given the opportunity to cast three votes, that might also be a good opportunity to expand the number of MPs to, for example, 250 or more. It would be a nice line of thought: more votes for the citizen, and more MPs for those votes. But at least something has to be done.
Rens Raemakers is a publicist and former Member of Parliament of D66 (2017-2023)