Column: About secrecy of the vote and all that
Guaranteed anonymity; that is the slogan and not only if you want to make a box red. That anonymity is also there if I want to keep to myself OR I will make a box red. After all, I have the freedom to deposit all those papers completely anonymously and with a broad grin in the round archive.
Our privacy is sacred and there is a law in the Netherlands that guarantees privacy.
A code on your Income tax assessment notice
How long has it been since the assessment notice issued by 's Rijks Belastinggaarders contained a code that showed whether the tax authorities had deviated from the declaration in recent years?
Twenty-five years, I think. And guess what: that code was visible in the (much too) large window on the blue envelope so that the postman could see whether Bert Burger had been 'good' in his declaration in recent years. An attentive citizen protested and those codes disappeared.
A code on my voting papers
I just, rest assured, mailed my ballot paper to the embassy. My registration number is visible in the window. But if you knock that orange envelope on the side, the registration card will shift and my date of birth will come into view.
I can't imagine that at the embassy the official letter openers are given the opportunity to type that date and my place of residence (postmark) into a computer (if that brilliant government software works at all...) so that information will be safe there. Those people also have secrecy, right?
And a Thai postal worker will have a hard time because he already has trouble reading the tiny print on the orange envelope with which our thrifty government wants to save ink. Although I think this layout is wrong economy.
But that window, that doesn't feel good. I have sent 'The Hague' an e-mail about this. Can they think about it for four years…..
So you see that people do their best to guarantee your privacy, but a simple orange envelope can make all that end up in the water.
Or you can buy an envelope yourself and send it to the embassy that way. Problem solved.
By the way, we might have to vote again soon because they can't come out in The Hague…..
I haven't received anything yet though. Incidentally, the voting cards that we get for municipal councils and provincial councils, a kind of postcard, openly state the date of birth, I don't think anyone has complained about that
I have received the documents by email.
But if you receive documents for the municipal council and PS, then I assume that you are registered in the Netherlands?
As long as it is orange and has a window in the right place. Otherwise the voice is lost.
As for the old days, to set something straight, it was the tax return that showed that code. Those were whoppers of envelopes of very sturdy quality that you could use very nicely to pack a surprise during sneezing time. And a surprise it was; after all, people were afraid of that color….. And still….
Erik, if you submit a request to the embassy, you can be present at the opening of the envelopes, that is public. I was there four years ago.
The voter is checked off, but the ballot paper is placed in a separate pile and opened later, so it is anonymous. The results of Thailand, however, were not allowed to be given to me, then officially had to come from The Hague. After all, it is not complete either, because the ballot paper can also be sent directly to The Hague instead of to the embassy.
Registering who voted what from those thousands of ballot papers is far too much work for the board of the polling station, which, by the way, consists of non-embassy staff. Thousands? Well, let's hope so, four years ago there were 322
322? That is very little if there are around 20.000 NLers in this country, of which more than 322 are certainly entitled to vote. This shows how national politics, on which we all depend, lives here.
Just count the people who did not receive the form or received it too late, there seem to be quite a few complaints about that, I did not receive anything and submitted the form to my district office really on time.