Polling stations, particularly in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, made a large number of mistakes in monitoring voting in last week’s local elections, the AD says on Wednesday.

The paper’s own analysis shows that in Amsterdam some polling stations counted 658 more votes than recorded voters, while in others 1,820 fewer votes were counted. In Rotterdam there were 1,666 unaccounted-for votes and in The Hague several hundred.

The difference is so great that it could affect the results in some places, politics professor Marcel Wissenburg told the paper.

Counts

After voting ends, polling stations count up how many voters have visited and how many ballot papers have been collected.

‘This should not be happening,’ Wissenburg told the paper. ‘These deviations are really too high.’

‘It is a very small figure per polling station and the effect is marginal,’ Rotterdam city council spokeswoman Karin van Reeuwijk told the paper. ‘But we can’t really explain it.’

One problem could be that polling station staff are tired after a long shift – from 07.30 to 21.00 hours – and are more likely to make mistakes, the AD says.