Aalten Constituency

From 1852 to 1919, the Aalten electoral district was one of the sixteen Gelderland electoral districts for the Provincial Council. The district comprised the municipalities of Aalten, Winterswijk, and Dinxperlo and held three seats.

Following the constitutional revision of 1848, which for the first time enabled direct elections of the Provincial Council under census suffrage (voting rights for men who met a certain income requirement)¹ – and the Provincial Act of 1850, Gelderland was divided into sixteen districts in 1852, including Aalten.²

With the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1917 and the Elections Act of 1919, the elections of April 10, 1919, were the first to use proportional representation within a single province-wide constituency, after which the Aalten electoral district ceased to exist.³

Origin and background

During the reign of King William I (1772–1843), provincial governments were appointed bodies in which nobility and local notables held seats without election. It was only with the constitutional revision of 1848 that members of the Provincial Council could be directly elected, albeit still on the basis of census suffrage. ¹

Establishment of the Aalten electoral district

In 1850, the Provincial Act came into effect, which determined, among other things, how members of the Provincial Council were elected. Two years later, the Act regulating the division of provinces into electoral districts of November 5, 1852 (Bulletin of Acts and Decrees No. 197) established the final division: Gelderland was split into sixteen electoral districts, including Aalten. ²

Abolition and transition to proportional representation

The constitutional revision of 1917 introduced universal male suffrage and heralded the abolition of the district system. The Elections Act of 1919 put an end to small electoral districts and introduced a single province-wide constituency with proportional representation in all provinces. This system was first applied during the Gelderland elections of April 10, 1919, at which point the Aalten electoral district ceased to exist. ³