Discussions about the German Voting System
This is the second part of a two part series about the German voting system.
- Explanation of the German Voting System
- Discussions about the German Voting System (this article)
In the past few weeks there has been a lot disussion if the voting system was unjust. The Federal Constitutional Court has demanded that it has to be changed until summer 2011.
Yet, the current discussions and the demands of the court are different, even though they're always mentioned together. On the one hand some politicians say that it was not just to form a coalition based on the seats of Direktkandidaten, on the other hand the court complained about the possibility to receive fewer seats having more votes due to Direktkandidaten (not directly about Direktkandidaten).
Distribution on states
The problem is the distribution of the seats on each state. Since the seats have to be rounded (of course) and therefore seats could move to another state if more people vote for the party there. If the party already has too many Direktkandidaten in this state, then they would lose one seat even though they have more votes.
Example
I will give you an example. This time we only watch Party A, but in two different states. The Party has received 15 seats due to second vote.
| State | First vote | Second vote | Second vote candidates in parliament | Members in parliament |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 10 candidates | 5% (=5 seats) | 0 candidates | 10 members (5 more than they would have got due to second vote) |
| B | 5 candidates | 20% (=10 seats) | 5 candidates | 10 members |
The party has received 20 seats, because there were 5 more Direktkandidaten than they had second votes in state A.
Now imagine that the party receives 7% of the second votes in state A. The influence on whole Germany is so small that they will still receive 15 seats for whole Germany, but one seat will be moved from state B to state A.
| State | First vote | Second vote | Second vote candidates in parliament | Members in parliament |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 10 candidates | 7% (=6 seats) | 0 candidates | 10 members (4 more than they would have got due to second vote) |
| B | 5 candidates | 20% (=9 seats) | 4 candidates | 9 members |
The party now has only 19 seats in the parliament, even though they received more votes. Just because they received them in a country where they had many Direktkandidaten.
Every vote must have the same value
The Federal Constitutional Court has said that every vote must have the same value. Therefore, it is wrong that there is a possibility that votes for a party could lead to less seats in parliament.
The Bundestag now has time until 2011 to change this behaviour.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Comments
Add Comment