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General elections were held in the Netherlands on 30 November 1848. They were the first direct elections to the House of Representatives, and were the first to elect a States-General to which government ministers would be responsible. Voting was restricted to men over the age of 23, and who paid a certain level of taxation. This limited the franchise to 55,728 people, roughly 11% of the male population over 23, or 2.5% of the total population of the country. Candidates were elected in districts in a two-round system; if no candidate received over 50% of the vote in the first round, the top two candidates would face a run-off. The districts had one MP for every 45,000 inhabitants.
As there were no official political parties until 1879, all candidates were nominally independents.