Stemfies

Being a politics undergraduate, I am gutted I can't vote for today's municipal council elections at home. As a Dutch citizen living overseas I am only allowed to vote for the Dutch House of Representatives and for the European Parliament, and thus not for municipal or provincial elections. But secretly it isn't the actual voting that I am missing today, its the new phenomenon of taking a 'stemfie'.

The idea of the 'stemfie' is that voters enter the booth, pick a candidate, take a photo of themselves and spread it on social media! Have a look at Pechtold's example below: 

I wonder who he voted for...

NRC (Dutch Newspaper) stated a couple of days ago the prediction that less than a quarter of the youth would be voting for the municipal elections today, which I find very disturbing. Too many people don't take advantage of the privilege they get to cast their vote in an election, but how can you have a successfully run democratic system without the support and votes of the citizens? Your vote is your choice, it is one of the most valuable, powerful things we own. So it would be stupid not to use it.

Elections have been suffering from low voter-turnout for a while now, so I find the 'stemfie' a great way of stimulating more citizens to vote - and clearly it is working! Apparently at 1.30pm today the amount of people having voted was equal to total turnout of the 2010 elections. 

I feel that it makes voting so much more fun, and it is a far better way of engaging the public rather than ideas such as compulsory voting. 

Hopefully the Dutch 'stemfie' will result in a world record voter-turnout!

Liefs,

Dutchy xx