Explanation of the German Voting System
Tomorrow there will be the elections for the Bundestag and at the moment there is - once again - a lot of discussion about the voting system. This is due to the fact that some parties could get the majority in Parliament without having the majority of the votes. I will explain how this can happen in two parts:
- Explanation of the German Voting System (this article)
- Discussions about the German Voting System
"You have two votes"
The ballot paper of the elections for the Bundestag tells you that you have two votes.
Example of a German voting ballot
The first vote is for a so called Direktkandidat (direct candidate) and the second one goes to a party. The Direktkandidat is one person who will represent a specific region in the Bundestag. There are 299 electoral districts for the current elections and therefore also 299 Direktkandidaten. If you want to talk with a member of the Bundestags you can go to the one responsible for your district. In my district there are seven candidates, but only the one with the most votes will win (majority voting system).
The second vote goes to a specific party and each party which can gain at least 5% of the votes (nationwide). The next step is to calculate how many seats the party will get. E.g. with 10% of the votes you would get 30 seats (nationwide). Then these seats have to be distributed to each state according to the percentage in these states. This is done because each party has to nominate different people for each state. However, if a person from the specific party has already won via first vote, then the party will get one seat less.
Example
Now, imagine a parliament that usually would have 100 seats and three parties. There would be 50 districts (half of the seats).
| Party | First Vote | Second vote | Second vote candidates in parliament | Members in parliament |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 40 candidates | 35% (=35 seats) | 0 candidates | 40 members (5 more than they would have got via second vote) |
| B | 8 candidates | 40% (=40 seats) | 32 candidates | 40 members |
| C | 2 candidates | 25% (=25 seats) | 23 candidates | 25 members |
There are now 105 representatives in the parliament, because everybody who was voted via first vote must receive a seat, even if his party should usually receive fewer seats.
More than 598 people in parliament
If you have remembered all numbers, you might have counted that there are 598 seats available. Yet, usually there are more representatives in the Bundestag. This happens if a party can win more seats for Direktkandidaten than they should usually get. In the example above Party A has reached this and therefore the parliament of these three parties would have 10 seats more.
Experts think that this year there will be about 20 representatives more, i.e. about 618 all together.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Comments
I think there should be less seats in our parliament......
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