Bijl cites a poll from last week, in which people were asked what exactly they thought was important in the provincial council. “That resulted in thirty issues, and issue eight was just about provincial politics,” Bijl says. ‘People started voting to want to do something about energy poverty or migration. You are afraid that the Provincial Council simply does not deal’.
People who supposedly vote for the Senate don’t seem to realize that the Senate itself shouldn’t be putting politics on the agenda. “They only check and veto once, but it’s not like they can suddenly take the lead to build nuclear power plants or close borders.”
‘You are selling yourself short’
Bijl believes voters are short selling themselves if they only vote ahead of the Senate; there are many important issues at stake in the province. But he thinks little of what is happening now. In a sense, Bijl also dares to speak of distorted results in the Provincial Council, because people vote for the wrong reasons. “About a third of voters vote for reasons that have nothing to do with the Provincial Council, and one wonders whether they are sufficiently informed.”
It would be a distinct possibility that if people had a better understanding of what the Provincial Council is about, different choices could have been made. “After all, there’s a lot of choice on such a ballot.”
Ticket inspector
It is supported by political scientist Hans Vollaard of Utrecht University, who underlines the seriousness of uninformed voters. Vollaard argues that elections primarily serve as a control mechanism. “People vote for a party if it stood for them, but if people don’t know what they did, they can’t be seen that way.”
Vollaard points out that elections often send a message, such as that a county road needs repair or that public transportation needs improvement. ‘But if you don’t know that the province is responsible for this, it gets complicated. And that’s why I always tell Members of Parliament that they should only try to find out what their constituents want after the election, because you can’t say that on the basis of these elections.”
Abuse
And it is precisely this attitude that John Bijl denounces. He calls the fact that people vote in the provincial council with the Senate in mind – so they can hold the cabinet – as an abuse. “If they are so eager to organize a provisional ballot, then organize a provisional ballot and don’t abuse the Provincial Council election for it.”
Bijl even goes so far as to call it the rape of provincial elections. ‘The Provincial Council should not be discussing migration or violence against police officers, but the fact that a quarter of the bus stops in Overijssel have been closed in the last four years. Or on lodging in small villages, because there the province has a distributive task. Or culture encouragement, you name it. We want to know what voters think.’
‘It’s a provincial rape’