Elections could be held within three months of a cabinet collapsing, but only if the government is prepared to invest more in the preparations, the electoral council has said.

The body responsible for running elections produced a report responding to criticism from MPs that the process took too long.

The current cabinet, led by Dick Schoof, fell on June 3 when Geert Wilders withdrew the far-right PVV from the coalition, but the election took place almost five months later on October 29.

The electoral council (kiesraad) said the process could be speeded up, but chairman Wim Kuijen said it required the government to make “fundamental choices”.

That included ensuring enough council staff are available during holiday periods to manage the process and keeping a permanent register of political parties and logos, so that the period for declaring lists of candidates could be shortened. Unregistered parties would still be able to take part with a so-called “blank list”.

Municipalities could also bring forward the deadline for finalising the electoral register, but that would mean more voting cards will be delivered to the wrong address if people move house between the deadline and election day.

Bringing forward registration deadlines would also make it more challenging for overseas voters to register in time and send in their ballots. Digital voting would need to be introduced to facilitate this, the electoral council said.

“It is up to politicians to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of quicker elections, the possible measures to achieve this and the consequences they will have,” the electoral council said.

A follow-up advisory report will be published next year following consultations with municipalities, political parties and others involved in organising elections.

Since 2010 snap elections have become more common, with only one government managing to see out its full term, Mark Rutte’s coalition of VVD and PvdA from 2012 to 2017.

His third government fell in January 2021, two months short of the finish line, so the election still went ahead on the scheduled date.

Since then the Netherlands has had caretaker governments for more than half the time, as negotiations to form Mark Rutte’s fourth cabinet and Dick Schoof’s administration lasted nearly eight months only for both cabinets to fall within a year.