At least 10 Danish nationals were told they could not register to vote in the European parliamentary elections in the Netherlands because they did not have the nationality of an EU state, Dutch News has learned.

Danes, like all non-Dutch EU nationals, had to fill in a special form using their Digid code to register their wish to vote here rather than in Denmark. However a glitch in the computer system prevented them from doing so. Instead they were told to contact their council.

“To register as wanting to vote for the European parliament in the Netherlands, you must have the nationality of one of the EU member states,” the Danes were told in an automated reply. “According to our information, this is not the case.”

“It would seem that the software firm did not check which countries are members of the EU,” one Dutch News reader said. “I’ve lived here for 30 years and never had a problem with voting. And now this.”

The problem with registration appears to have been confined to Danish nationals, of whom some 7,000 live in the Netherlands.

“We know of 10 Danes who were confronted with this problem. They were all given a form they could fill in and register by avoiding the Digid portal,” a spokeswoman for Amsterdam city council told Dutch News.

The problem lasted for at least a month and was only solved with a “new release” of the software on March 12, just 11 days before the deadline for registrations.

PinkRoccade, which provided the computer system in Amsterdam and is a supplier to most of the country’s local authorities, declined to say what the cause of the problem was, or how long it lasted because of “confidentiality agreements”.

Nor would it say if other nationalities were also affected or how long it took to fix the bug.

“What I can say is it only affected a couple of [local authority] clients,” the spokesman said.

All non-Dutch nationals who want to vote in the Netherlands on June 6, and who were not registered for the 2019 vote, were required to sign up with their local authority by April 23.

Did you have problems registering to vote? Or did your local council fail to inform you? We’d like to hear from you. Please email editor@dutchnews.nl.