The ruling VVD Liberal party is introducing draft legislation which would again make it possible to use voting computers in the Netherlands.

If the legislation becomes law it would be first used at the end of 2017 to elect local councils in some areas where the boundaries have been redrawn. The plan would involve people voting by computer, then printing out the ballot paper and placing it in a ballot box. Votes would be counted electronically

MP Joost Taverne says the new system has an advantage over the previous voting computers used in the Netherlands because the votes are not recorded.

A government commission made similar recommendations in 2013. However, home affairs minister Ronald Plasterk has not begun the process because of the cost.

Taverne says costs would be cut in the long term because ballot papers would no longer have to be distributed to all polling stations and fewer people would be needed to count the results.

Experiments with voting computers were abandoned several years ago because of privacy issues and problems with counting the votes.