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Tom Monto

Dutch Election 2024

National legislature members

elected at-large

list PR


Municipal elections

Municipal councils are elected using party-list proportional representation. The number of seats depends on the population of the municipality, ranging from nine seats for municipalities with a population below 3,000, to 45 seats for municipalities with a population over 200,000.

(thus Edmonton would have 45 city councillors if we adopted Dutch system.)




EU members

2024 31 Members of European Parliament are elected, up from 26 due to Brexit leaving more seats for the other countries and due to Netherland's population growth.

-elected at-large with effective threshold of of about 3.9 percent being enough to take one seat.

-open-list list PR

-voting instructions state: "The Netherlands uses preferential voting, which gives voters the option to indicate their preferences within the party list they choose. Candidates who receive the most preferential votes are more likely to be elected."

-purpose of "preferential votes" is not to allow transfers but to mark the candidate or candidates that voter prefers to be elected. Party list votes are added to the candidates' totals until all seats allocated to the party are filled by candidates that achieve quota.

Despite using term "preferential voting" it appears that the votes are not ranked or preferential as we use the term, but only bear one or more X's to indicate the candidates who are preferred.


"The base rule of preferential voting is that you vote on someone that is not expected to be elected without enough preferential votes. As stated earlier, this is for example the number 37 of a party that is expecting 36 votes. This strategy is not that simple since there are many aspects that influence the lowest-listed elected politician." ...


For example if you help elect someone say in 37th place, that means someone in top 36 positions will not be elected.


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