Talk:2023 Dutch Senate election

We need some prose

This article has a lot of multicoloured figures and tables, but almost no prose to explain what any of these mean. I've tried my best to make a start, separating out the polling from the projected seat totals, but it would help if editors with more knowledge of the topic could add more text. Thanks. Bondegezou (talk) 10:51, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Separating polling from projection seems logical, but... the top row of the polling table is the ANP projection, which is related to the bar and pie chart. Suggestion: merge the two chapters again and rename the chapter to something that covers both polls and projection, e.g. 'predictions'. Charts and table work best together. I've added some text. Uwappa (talk) 11:40, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Speaking of prose, we have some "the government would need this party to get stuffs done" under the Projections section. It would be nice if there's prose, say, in a background section explaining the government's current lack of majority in the Senate and the rise of BBB or PVDA/GL, etc. —twotwofourtysix^{(talk || edits)} 13:32, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I removed the term polling because as I stated in my edit summary, the table shows seat projections based on opinion polling and results of the provincial elections. Stating that these are opinion polls for the Senate election suggests that a sample of Senate electors was asked how they intended to vote, and this has not happened. This makes them all projections rather than polls, even if the projections are based on polls. Luxorr (talk) 21:01, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Luxorr: There's a difference between the projections based on opinion polls and the projections based on the results of the provincial elections. I think it would help if that could be explained. Bondegezou (talk) 10:43, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

"Faithless electors"

@Braganza I object to the use of the term "faithless elector". I have never seen it used it any context other than that of the electoral college in US presidential elections (see the faithless elector article). Moreover, the term suggests that these electors are not faithful to a pledge to vote for a certain party or candidate, but electors are not pledged to vote one way or another. Luxorr (talk) 07:50, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

@Luxorr: i copied it from the 2019 Dutch Senate election

how about dissident? i would include it though since one GL MP voted for Volt out of protest and thus Volt gained one seat from them Braganza (talk) 08:14, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

If it refers only to the GL elector, "dissident vote" is a better term, yes. Though I don't think it's really necessary to include it in the results table since it's already mentioned in the text above. Luxorr (talk) 08:24, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

The words Faithless and Dissident do not do justice to the Dutch constitutional right: freedom of vote. There is no party whip in Dutch politics. The Dutch constitution does not even describe political parties. Officially members are elected and vote as individuals.

Individual members are free to vote any way they want and that is what Debora Fernald did.

• Article 129.6 of the Dutch constitution (English translation) guarantees freedom of vote to all members of provincial councils members. See explanation at parlement.com (English translation) about voting without burden.
• votes should be secret. (Article 53, English translation)

The strategic voting of other members can very well be a violation of the constitution, follow orders and vote for another party. Uwappa (talk) 19:06, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree. "Dissident vote" is preferable to "faithless elector" but neither is technically constitutionally correct. I can live with its inclusion in the results table but would personally prefer for it to be left out. Luxorr (talk) 13:22, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I changed it to "Deviation from projection", since it technically also includes the (extra) votes from electors who are not affiliated to any of the participating parties. For example, the votes received by PvdA from Bonaire. These are not dissident votes, but are a deviation from the projected result. — Ætoms ^[talk] 11:22, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Should deviations of unweighted votes add up to zero? Uwappa (talk) 12:33, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I think the discrepancy comes from the fact that the seat projection did not take the electoral colleges for the Caribbean Netherlands into consideration (because frankly they are quite unlikely to affect the result). That being said, those electoral colleges have 19 members, so not sure where the sum of the deviations of 18 comes from. Luxorr (talk) 21:13, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Changed total deviation to +18. You could be right. The source for the ANP projection does not mention votes from Caribbean. Uwappa (talk) 04:03, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The electoral college of Sint Eustatius had one member representing the CDA. So there were only 18 unaffiliated electors. — Ætoms ^[talk] 09:30, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Party alliance

On what basis are are electors from Carribean Netherlands parties grouped with PvdA-Gl and D66 alliance? Just because they ended up voting for these parties? I don't thinks this is a good basis, since they are free to vote on any party and as far as I know there is no official alliance between Carribean parties and Dutch parties. Especially the parties from Bonaire are all different and are not all affiliated with pvdA-GL. Grioghair (talk) 12:32, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree, these parties are not part of an alliance with PvdA–GroenLinks or D66. — Ætoms ^[talk] 11:25, 4 June 2023 (UTC)