Election vote count sees D66 move 28,500 votes past PVV; Some 87,000 Dutch voted abroad

As expected, centrist political party D66 remains ahead of the far-right PVV in the elections for the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of a Dutch Parliament, with 28,455 more votes as of Monday evening. D66 and party leader Rob Jetten increased their lead with the votes counted abroad, and a more accurate update from Rotterdam. It appeared both D66 and the PVV would still send 26 politicians to sit as part of the 150 members of Parliament in the Tweede Kamer, and the Socialist Party will likely hold the three seats it was projected to get.

The latest data shows D66 with nearly 1.79 million votes, versus 1.76 million for the PVV, forming the lowest gap between the top two parties since 1952. The Electoral Council will officially confirm the results on Friday. Each seat represents over 70,000 voters. Parties are allocated the seats based on the amount of ballots they receive which are evenly divisible by this total. However, there are always seats left over for which there are insufficient voters, known as residual seats.

Additionally, the preliminary counts can still deviate enough from the rapid initial count, that it remained uncertain on Monday which party will take the last remaining seat. The subsequent counts also take into account who voters selected as their parliamentary representative, and not just the party they chose. Discrepancies are not uncommon, but the fluctuations are usually minor.

The revised estimate gave D66 about 2,400 more votes in Rotterdam, with the PVV losing about the same. And D66 also received significantly more mail-in votes than Geert Wilders' PVV, according to preliminary results.

A total of 86,894 Dutch people voted from abroad. Just as in 2023, GroenLinks-PvdA received the most votes from Dutch citizens abroad, taking 28.9 percent. D66 was the second-largest party among these voters, with 18.5 percent, followed by the CDA and VVD at a distant third and fourth. The PVV was in fifth with fewer than 8.6 percent of ballots in their favor.

The municipality of The Hague, which is responsible for processing postal votes, released the preliminary results Monday evening. Votes submitted to embassies and consulates had to be received there by 5 p.m. The mail-in ballots were the last to be counted. All provisional results of the Tweede Kamer elections have been submitted.

"Voters abroad are receiving a lot of attention. And rightly so, because every vote counts," said The Hague Mayor Jan van Zanen. He called the mail-in voting station in his city "unique."

The day after the election, the race to determine which party would emerge victorious in these parliamentary elections was still a close call. Including postal votes, D66 received a total of 28,455 more votes than the PVV, according to figures compiled by the ANP Election Service.

In the final results for Rotterdam, the PVV received 2,483 fewer votes than in the provisional results. D66 gained 2,423 votes. DENK also received 2,860 fewer votes than expected. The change is due to the preliminary total being based on a count of 84 percent of ballots when the municipality submitted its tally to the ANP Election Service on Thursday.

That "provided a good picture of the outcome, but the last 16 percent can still change the outcome," the city said Monday. The municipality considers a deviation of 1 percent normal, but it could be greater if the voting behavior of the last 16 percent deviates from the rest.

There were also discrepancies between the provisional and final results in other municipalities. In Emmen, there's also a relatively large difference, to the detriment of the PVV. The municipality states that the provisional result was based on a quick count.

"Our experience shows that in elections, there are often discrepancies between a quick count, which is provisional in nature, and the actual counting of the paper ballots at the individual level." The ANP Election Service reported earlier Monday that D66's lead over the PVV had increased by thousands of votes after more than thirty municipalities submitted new tallies.

Meanwhile, the SP is likely to retain its third seat, the ANP Election Service based on a forecast. There was a chance the remaining seat would shift to D66, but now that the postal votes from abroad have been counted, it appears that will not be the case.

A spokesperson for D66 says his party is still "extremely proud" to be the largest party. "It is what it is," he responds to the news that D66 will likely lose an extra seat.

D66 prefers a coalition "down the middle" with the VVD, GroenLinks-PvdA, and CDA. The VVD opposes cooperation with GroenLinks-PvdA and advocates for a "center-right" Cabinet with far-right party JA21. With 75 seats, that option likely falls just short of a majority in the Tweede Kamer.

The D66 spokesperson refused to admit he's happy that the VVD's preferred option has become more complicated without finding that 76th seat. "After a campaign, you just want as many seats as possible."