Over 13.3 million people can vote in today’s General Election
Over 13.3 million people can vote in today’s General Election. The election is for the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, with 1,128 candidates from 26 parties competing for one of the 150 seats available.
According to Statistics Netherlands, an estimated 13.3 million people will be allowed to vote. This amounts to 91 percent of the population aged 18 or older. Almost all Dutch citizens aged 18 and older on the day of the election are eligible to vote. This year, approximately 500,000 young people will be voting for the first time, as they were not yet 18 years old during the previous elections in March 2021.
Nearly 109,000 Dutch citizens living abroad are eligible to vote, topping 100,000 for the first time. According to a report by Nu.nl in October, the municipality of The Hague, which registers voters abroad and receives and counts their votes, stated that most Dutch voters abroad live in Germany, Belgium, and France.
In the last Tweede Kamer elections in 2021, 92,772 Dutch citizens abroad were eligible to vote. Of these, 63,502 actually voted, amounting to a turnout of about 68 percent. In the 2017 elections, there were 80,066 registered overseas voters.
Turnout in the 2021 Tweede Kamer elections was 78.7 percent, down from 81.9 percent in 2017. Turnout in the provincial elections in March 2023 was 58.80 percent. In 2019, it was 56.16 percent.
Based on provisional population data from October 1, Statistics Netherlands reported that over half of the eligible voters are 50 years or older. 85 percent of residents aged 18 to 35 are eligible to vote. Nearly all individuals over 65 are eligible to vote (98 percent).
Among adults not born in the Netherlands, more than half can vote due to having Dutch nationality. The majority (57 percent) of this group has been living in the Netherlands for 25 years or more, while over a quarter have resided there for at least 10 years. Close to 15 percent have at least one parent born in the Netherlands.
