Smaller proportion of adult population entitled to vote than in previous parliamentary elections 02:32 in Politics According to Statistics Netherlands, this decrease is mainly due to the fact that in recent years more people have arrived in the Netherlands who do not have Dutch nationality.

Nearly 13.3 million people will be allowed to vote for the Provincial Council elections this year, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports on the basis of provisional figures. That is 91.6 percent of the population aged 18 or older. That percentage is slightly lower than in the previous provincial elections in 2019, when 93.3 percent of adults in the Netherlands were allowed to vote, or almost 13 million people.

According to Statistics Netherlands, this relative decrease is mainly due to the fact that more people have arrived in the Netherlands in recent years who do not have or do not yet have Dutch nationality. This group, which includes expats and asylum seekers who have recently come to the Netherlands, is not entitled to vote.

More old voters due to aging population

The fact that the Netherlands is aging is also reflected in the figures of voters aged 65 and older. In 2003, 13 percent were 65 years or older, in 2023 this will be almost 27 percent. Of all municipalities, the share of voters in this age group is the largest in Laren (40.7 percent of all people who are allowed to vote in that municipality).

A quarter of all people who are allowed to vote for the Provincial Council elections are under 35 years old. These young voters relatively often live in cities and especially in student cities.

But Urk (37.3 percent of all eligible voters), Renswoude (29.7 percent) and Staphorst (29.5 percent) are also municipalities where many young people are allowed to vote. Relatively speaking, the provinces of Groningen and Utrecht have the most voters under the age of 35.

The number of eligible voters says nothing about the final number of people who will actually vote. That turnout percentage in the Provincial Council elections is much lower. Since 1991, this has fluctuated between 45 and 56 percent.

The elected members of the Provincial Council in turn vote for the Senate. Residents of the Caribbean Netherlands and (this year for the first time) Dutch nationals abroad can also influence the composition of the Senate. This is done through ‘electoral colleges’. 37,000 Dutch people abroad have registered for this.