Dutch Legislation on Election Fraud, the Past and the Present

Abstract

It has become common in the majority of countries around the world to hold elections. However, although global norms for elections are converging, there is still no agreement on the definition of election fraud. Violations of election integrity can take a very wide range of forms, from the more visible irregularities as ballot box stuffing to more subtle irregularities as media bias. One thing that can be said for sure is that in order to convict someone for committing election fraud, the acts that are deemed illegal should be prohibited by the law of a country. This means that the legal definition of election fraud is important when studying electoral integrity. In this paper I look at the legal definition of election fraud in the Dutch context. I examine which acts within the election process are defined as illegal. I also look into the history of the Dutch laws on election fraud to see which acts used to be considered as election fraud and are not so anymore and which acts have been added over time. An overview is given of actual cases of election fraud in the Netherlands. This leads to some conclusions on the legal definition of election fraud in a long standing democracy.