Next German Federal Election - Electoral System

Electoral System

In general, the Bundestag is elected using a mixed member proportional system. Voters have two votes: With their first they elect a member of Bundestag for their constituency, with the second they vote for a party. The seats in the Bundestag are generally distributed according to the second (party) votes. A party who wins more districts in a given state than it is entitled to according to the number of party votes it received in that state keeps these "overhang" seats.

This electoral system had to be changed under an order of the Federal Constitutional Court. The court stated that a provision in the Federal Election Law which makes it possible for a party to lose seats due to more votes violates the constitutional guarantee of the electoral system being equal and direct.

This change should have been made by 30 June 2011, but the government failed to present appropriate legislation in time to make this deadline. A new electoral law was finally enacted in late 2011, but declared unconstitutional once again by the Federal Constitutional Court upon lawsuits from the opposition parties and a group of some 4,000 private citizens. Finally, four of the five factions in the Bundestag agreed on an electoral reform whereby the number of seats in the Bundestag will be increased as much as necessary to ensure that any overhang seats are compensated, to ensure full proportionality.