Ballot boxes fill up quickly, ballot box lifter and new ballot boxes are needed

37 parties participate in these legislative elections, a post-war record. The same number of columns is therefore needed on the ballot paper, which means that the paper is bulky and takes up a lot of space in the ballot box. With a so-called ballot box pestle, “a wooden stick that can be passed on the bus”, the pile is pressed, says the spokesperson for Rotterdam. There are also new ballot boxes on the way to the busy polling stations.

According to the spokesperson, there is another reason the bins are quickly full. “Normally we put the closest location on the voting card where you can vote. Not now, so there’s more spread.” Like many other municipalities, Rotterdam also uses a pressure gauge. “So you can see how crowded there are in your polling station, and then you can wait a bit or go a bit further. It makes it difficult to estimate where it will be busiest,” the holder explains. word.

Also this year, far fewer people are voting to go to work. “Normally we can estimate who will vote on the way to work based on the previous elections, for example in Rotterdam Central, we have set up a bigger office,” the spokesperson said of the spread of the pressure in Rotterdam’s 400 polling stations. .