News item | 26-01-2024 | 2:46 PM
Currently, only voters who cannot vote independently due to a physical disability receive assistance at the voting booth. This does not apply to voters who have difficulty reading or have an intellectual disability.
Minister De Jonge of the Interior and Kingdom Relations wants to make this help possible for everyone who requests it. To achieve this goal even faster, a new bill is being prepared so that the new system can be introduced everywhere at once. A previously planned experimental law that initially allowed voting booth assistance to be trialled in a small number of municipalities during a number of elections will therefore be cancelled.
Minister de Jonge:
“In the original plans, help at the voting booth would not be available until 2029 for anyone who requests it. That cannot be explained. We believe it is necessary, that is why we are making a better bill that immediately changes the Electoral Act. If both Houses agree, more voters will be able to use this from 2026.’
Help in the voting booth
Elections are the basis of our democracy. It is special that in the Netherlands we can freely cast our vote for whoever we want. However, for many voters, casting a vote is not a given, even though the desire to be able to vote themselves is great. This applies, for example, to voters who have difficulty reading or have an intellectual disability. By making it possible for them to ask a polling station member for help, they can more easily exercise their right to vote. Assistance can only be given by a polling station member, whereby the voter who receives the assistance must always indicate for whom he/she wants to vote.
Experiments Act expires
To make assistance at the voting booth possible, a temporary experimental law was being prepared. After a predominantly positive advice from the Council of State, the purpose of this law was again critically examined. That means making the election process more accessible to every voter. That is why the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations has now chosen not to first try out the new system in just a small number of municipalities, but to introduce it nationally in one go. The new bill will soon be submitted to the Advisory Division of the Council of State for advice.
UN Convention on Disability
The Assistance in the Voting Booth bill is in line with the UN Convention on Disability and the wish of various organizations, such as the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, to make assistance with voting in the voting booth available to a broader group. The Electoral Council also previously recommended that assistance from a polling station member be made possible for voters with an intellectual disability.
Read the letter to Parliament about assistance in the voting booth here.