Every four years, American citizens vote for a new president on the first Tuesday of November. The US citizens also vote for new Senators, Congressmen, and local leaders. Most Americans have to make over 20 decisions abaout candidates on Election Day, reaching from the presidential election to district courts. People in Germany only have to check two boxes on Election Day in Germany. But who do they vote for, how are the different positions like Bundeskanzler and Bundespräsident elected, what is the 5% Hürde, and why do Germans still have over 60 options combined between their two votes?
Every 4 years between 46 and 48 months after the previous election, on a day the Bundespräsident determines, Germany reelects their Bundestag by choosing a party and a candidate, which is running in their constituency and can be part of a party. The candidate that gets the most votes in their constituency gets a Direktmandat and is directly voted into the Bundestag. The other vote goes into percentages and determines how many seats each party can get. The Bundestag consists of 299 Direktmandaten and 299 candidates from a parties Landesliste. Every state determines a number of seats based on their population, and has a set number of constituencies. The parties get a number of these seats based on the percentages from the second vote. And every seat that a party gets that isn’t already used by a Direktmandat is given to the next candidate on the parties Landesliste. The candidates on the list have been elected by the party before the election.
But it isn’t all that easy,as the so called Überhangsmandate and Ausgleichsmandate are added every election. If a party has more seats through Direktmandate than the percentages in a state supposes them to have, every seat they have to much is called a Überhangsmandat. But because they are allowed to keep these seats, the determined percentages aren’t given anymore. To restore these percentages, the Ausgleichsmandate is added. The percentages are rounded so not too many small percentages need to be considered or make the seating distribution too complicated. The 5% Hürde doesn’t allow a party with less than 5% of the votes to gain seats from anything other than the Direktmandate. Nearly the same process happens with the national percentages, and the states determine the amounts of seats at the national level to finally determine the seat distribution for the Bundestag. The current Bundestag has 733 seats and is one of the largest to ever exist.
The same process, ballot, and seat distribution rules are used for the Kommunalwahlen, the election of the regional mayor and government (aka the Gemeinderat); the Landtagswahl, the election of the state parliament; and the Europawahl, the election for the European Parliament; both of which take place every 5 years, except for Bremens Landtagswahl that takes place every 4 years. The last Bundestagswahl was in 2021, the last Europawahl in 2024, and the Landtagswahlen varied based on the state.
Unlike the US, in Germany you can’t directly vote your president or chancellor, as both of these positions are voted by the members of the federal and national parliaments. Depending on your 2nd vote in Landtagswahl and Bundestagswahl, you can indirectly influence these positions due to the majority in the Bundestag almost always being the party to provide the rarely used Bundeskanzler.
While the American political system focuses on two main parties, Germany’s political system has been impacted by 6-7 big parties in recent years. Similar to the US, in Germany there are multiple smaller parties. At the last election in 2021, 53 parties were listed on the ballot and there are currently 8 seats from small parties or independent Direktmandate. Together with the average 11 candidates for the Direktmandat, German voters still see over 60 circles they could cross although they only have two decisions to make.
