Talk:House of Representatives (Netherlands)

Name
The name of this article is incorrect: the 2e Kamer is not the house of representatives as in the USA. There are no districts that send a representative to parliament. Secondly, the dutch translation of the term "house of representatives" is never used in the dutch context. In all cases the term 2nd chamber is used. I propose that this wiki be named 2nd Chamber or lower house of the Netherlands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.249.241.3 (talk) 20:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Sadly the official name ridiculously equates the Second Chamber with the House of Representataives. The official website of the Chamber is at http://www.houseofrepresentatives.nl/ for example. – Kaihsu (talk) 21:27, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Euhm no, the official website is at http://www.tweedekamer.nl/. It is in Dutch, being that of the Dutch parliament. The website quoted by you is the translation.
 * But even if you would make the point the translate website is "official" you should read the site which calls it "The Dutch House of Representatives" and not "The house of representatives of the Netherlands", so your move is not very well backed up. Arnoutf (talk) 21:39, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The translated website mentioned is a website maintained and moderated by the government, hence it is an official website. They can (and should) however have an English website, since English is one of the official languages in the Netherlands. Why they chose the name "House of Representatives" rather than "Second Chamber", I don't know. In the part of the Netherlands where the majority of the population speaks English (Saba/Statia) it is more commonly referred to as Second Chamber (i.e. see several articles on www.sabanews.nl). However, if the Dutch government calls the parliament House of Representatives, I think we should call it that way, too. PPP (talk) 12:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
 * So is anyone going to move the page to Dutch House of Representatives?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.152.239.68 (talk) 14:05, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No. The house is not called Dutch House of Representatives. It's called House of Representatives. And it's in The Netherlands. Hence the current title is correct and needs no adjustment. PPP (talk) 08:37, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
 * But the English-language version of the official website cited above as justifying our not calling this body the Second Chamber of the States General DOES call it "The Dutch House of Representatives" (even though that's a silly "translation" in my view and smacks of kowtowing to the United States). By the way, that official website is NOT "maintained and moderated by the government", as claimed above, but by the Second Chamber itself ("Dit is de officiële website van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal"). Government and parliament are not the same thing! -- Picapica (talk) 00:19, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, and another thing, it is nonsense to claim that "English is one of the official languages in the Netherlands": De officiële taal in Nederland is het Nederlands / The official language in the Netherlands is Dutch - and only Dutch. That's not surprising given that only some 0.03% of Dutch citizens have English as their first home language, in any case: around 360 times as many citizens have Nedersaksisch as their first home language! -- Picapica (talk) 00:41, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Electoral districts
What do the 19 electoral districts do in this system? And why are the residual seats divided by nineteen? --rmhermen


 * The electoral districts don't seem to have much affect on the calculations, apart for a bit of an obstacle for new parties to get the signatures of support, but maybe they have some role in organising the elections, polling stations, ballot papers etc. I don't know what happens if a party submits a different candidate list for each district. Not sure what you mean by residual seats divided by nineteen: rather there's a different calculation method used if the number of remander seats is greater than 19. -(


 * The electoral districts are: 1. an obstable for new parties, they need 30 signatures in every district and 2. a way to place regional candidates only on a list in their home region. Parties can choose to have a list with the same candidates throughout the country, or different lists in every district or a group of districts, so every party has somewhere between 1 and 19 different lists. Usually only the last 5 candidates differ, but larger differences, although rare, may occur.


 * To calculate the total number of seats a party receives, the sum of votes on all these lists is used. When a party has more than 1 list, the seats a party received are further allocated on these lists by dividing the parties number of votes through the number of seats it received. Remainder seats are allocated using the largest surplus method. When candidates are declared elected on more than one list (what happens if there is hardly any difference between the different lists), they are elected on the list where they received the most preference votes. Usually this means that top candidates are elected on the list in either their home region, or the list from electoral district 7, Arnhem, the largest district, and backbenchers on the other lists. This also means that when a MP resigns, the list on which he was elected is used to nominate his replacement.


 * There is no different calculation system when the number of remainder seats is higher than 19. In practice the number of remainder seats in Second Chamber elections is 4-6. The D'Hondt system of largest averages is always used. You are probably confused with the municipal councils (gemeenteraden). When the number of seats of a council is 19 or higher, the D'Hondt method is used. This means that a party can win more than one remainder seat, and there is a preference for larger parties (making list combinations interesting). When the number of seats is 17 or less, the largest surpluses method is used, which prefers smaller parties and limits the number of remainder seats for a party to one. Freako 18:43, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm still a bit confused. So, the Netherlands don't elect it's PM's from electoral districts/consituencies? --98.250.5.197 (talk) 07:26, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No, because at elections for the House of Representatives, every major party has a national list of candidate-MP's. The top candidate of a party is generally that party's candidate to become PM. Some smaller parties are only on the ballot in some areas, but we always use the D'Hondt system. VR-Land (talk) 17:30, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

"it is possible to gain one of the 150 seats with as little as 0.6 percent of the votes."
What is so special about being able to gain a seat with as little as 0.6% of the votes (which btw. should be rather 0.7% rounded correctly)? In the US Senate, which only has 100 seats, it's possible to acquire a seat with less than 0.1% of the votes (either one of the two Wyoming seats, or other less populated US states). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.146.181.169 (talk • contribs)
 * Bad example, because the USA is a republic. Residents of one state cannot vote for a Senate candidate of another state. Intangible 22:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It is possible to gain a seat with as little as 0.7% of the votes in each of the districts. That is the difference. Arnoutf 09:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The fact that the USA is a republic is irrelevant. The fact that it is a federation and the Netherlands is a unitary state is not. Quiensabe (talk) 15:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Anyway, you can gain 0.6% of the representation (i.e. 1 seat) with 0.6% of the votes. Sounds rather democratic to me. ~(PS in the UK district system you could in principle gain an absolute majority with as little as 0.6% of the votes -> You need to win 51% of the districts and need 0 votes elsewhere (already doubling your impact per district to 1.2%). If in each of these districts 100 parties participate, and the other 99 gain 1%, you will win all of those (largest wins, majority not needed). Far fetched, but possible. Arnoutf (talk) 21:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The difference is that a party that wins 0.66666... percent of the national votes is guaranteed a seat in parliament. That's certainly not the case in the USA. That wording has since been changed in the article, it seems. Peking Duck (talk) 23:59, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Proposed merger
I am not in favour. To my memory the tables used to be in this article and were moved to the separate article to cleanup the current one. Moving it back in would undo this idea Arnoutf 21:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Radicalism
Surely, labeling D66's ideology as radicalism, doesn't sound right. This must be a translation error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.138.160 (talk) 02:34, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I do not know where you found the word 'radicalism', because in the last edit before your comment, the ideology was described as 'Social liberalism'. But radicalism is an old word for approximately the same ideology: left-wing of the traditional bourgeoisie liberalism; the name originated before socialism (which is again left of this 'radicalism') became a mainstream movement. Of course nowadays, radicalism has also other connotations. Bever (talk) 18:10, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Sworn in
When does the House get sworn in? How soon after an election? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.179.110 (talk) 02:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In this case on June 14, ie after 5 days. Arnoutf (talk) 21:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Mark Rutte isnt a parliamentairy leader
The Dutch system knows dualism, wich means that a minister cant have a seat in either houses. Thus Stef Blok (nmr 3.) is the parliamentary leader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.119.106.81 (talk) 07:56, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

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Exclusion from voting
In the section ‘registation and voting’ it says that you are excluded from voting if you serve a prison sentence of at last one year. But according to ‘Kiesraad.nl’ that hasn’t been the case since 1983. Altough a judge can take away your voting rights if your crimes have caused ‘serious damage to the Dutch constitution’. But that almost never happens. StanBax (talk) 17:00, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It looks like you are right: https://www.kiesraad.nl/verkiezingen/vraag-en-antwoord/mogen-gedetineerden-stemmen. Peking Duck (talk) 21:15, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You are completely right, most of what was in the section seems pre 1983 or even older and not in any sensible way in line with what is actually in the cited source. I revised the section according to the actual contents of the source. Arnoutf (talk) 08:00, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Omtzigt
Why was my edit reverted… Omtzigt is certainly a member of NSC, and not an independent as is labeled here. 2600:1004:B17B:2D06:2093:58F2:33F3:BE26 (talk) 03:38, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
 * per https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerleden_en_commissies/fracties it is not possible in Netherlands to register new parties from independent politician, also BVNL does not exist in parliament. Shadow4dark (talk) 03:53, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I see, thank you. 2600:1004:B1A1:D693:81EB:30D5:49E1:5BAC (talk) 06:01, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Seperate factions PvdA-GL
I support @Shadow4dark, we do not have to mention the background of PvdA and GL members. I havent read a source outside Wikipedia that does that explicitly. And one difference with Germany, is that these members are also not elected by a different party. Dajasj (talk) 13:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * It is WP:OR as they are clearly stated as GL-PVDA and not seperate. https://www.houseofrepresentatives.nl/members_of_parliament/parliamentary_parties/groenlinks-pvda, see party members Shadow4dark (talk) 14:12, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * As I said in the edit summary, GroenLinks and Labour do indeed sit as a single faction in parliament, but they are still two separate parties. It is standard in Wikipedia to include the number of MPs of each party even when they sit as a single faction. This is the case even in parliaments like Bulgaria’s and Spain’s where MPs are elected using party-list proportional representation, just like in the Netherlands. I also included a source that breaks down the MPs by party instead of by faction. Brainiac242 (talk) 14:18, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I see it is only a note btw, which is better than what I see on other pages. But are we going to change it everytime a MP leaves parliament? Dajasj (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * (I missed it because it was later added by @Luxorr, thanks!) Dajasj (talk) 14:34, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Both styles are widely used, but because it reduces visibility, notes are usually reserved for cases when there are too many parties in the factions/coalitions to be shown the other way (e.g. France). Also, yes, when the number of MPs of a party changes, we are supposed to update the article. Brainiac242 (talk) 14:53, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I changed it to a note so that it would be analogous to Sumar in the article for the Congress of Deputies, which you also mentioned. I also think that putting the different parties in the infobox directly might give the impression that the distinction is more consequential than it really is. The two parties operate as a single force, in contrast to plural groups in the Congress of Deputies, the Bulgarian National Assembly or the Bundestag, where the different parties still act with some degree of independence. Luxorr (talk) 15:05, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The current seat map is lower quality as the last one and harder to seperate all parties. Shadow4dark (talk) 09:49, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Voorzitter - Speaker????
I very much disapprove of translating Voorzitter as Speaker. Speaker is a function known in Anglo-saxon parliaments. The use of speaker as a translation is inaccurate and could create a false impression: the man/woman is a Chairman or a President of the chamber. There are no doubt many who prefer to use speaker because it is used in English. Speaker, however, is an equivalent and the term does not accurately reflect the Dutch situation. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 22:52, 27 April 2024 (UTC)


 * The English-language website also uses "Chairman" for that post. Glide08 (talk) 22:44, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, the official translation of the Constitution uses the word "Speaker". Luxorr (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I would go with the house website (ie use chairman), although his tasks and appointment are very similar to the US situation (selected by the house at start of period). Arnoutf (talk) 18:25, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The House website itself isn't particularly consistent on the matter. Luxorr (talk) 18:52, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Wasted votes
I propose the deletion of the section on wasted votes, this seems like original research to me, and I also see it mentioned rarely on the pages of other parliaments (where I think this problem is often far worse).

On the merits I also disagree with it: It seems to argue that the votes for parties that do not enter parliament are waisted. I don't agree with this, this is still an important political signal, as is the case with all voting. It implies that the It also does not account to for the votes "wasted" when a party gains more votes than it needed for its current amount of seats, something that happens all the time and would be a significantly higher number. 2A02:A45A:5AF5:1:912E:DB1A:A58C:6855 (talk) 10:10, 14 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I think it is worth including it somewhere on Wikipedia, in particular because the Netherlands has a relatively low wasted vote. But perhaps Elections in the Netherlands would be a better place. Dajasj (talk) 12:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)