@@Dave_Sisson Many eastern European states were also inspired by the German system when they reformed theirs after the end of the Warsaw Pact. It's not too complicated, apart from the exact way the overhang and equalising seats are allocated. That's a bit tricky.
When I was a child, not only were the polling places within walking distance, but no identification was necessary. The reason for that was, when my parents walked through the door, the poll workers all said, "Hello, Mr. & Mrs. Smith! How are you today?" There's something to be said for living on a scale where you know your neighbors. That had all gone out the window by the time I was old enough to vote.
Good thing if you have to wait: I have to vote at a local bar. So if there are to many people at the same time I just have a seat and a beer. We call it "Überbrückungsbier"
There is actually a sixth, unwritten election principle invented by the Federal Constitutional Court. It states that the election has to be public (Öffentlichkeitsgrundsatz). The principle of public elections requires that the poll is held under public scrutiny. The public should have the chance to monitor the essential parts of the electoral process (except for the casting of votes) and the way in which the result is ascertained. This is to be ensured, for example, by the right to be present in the polling station during the poll and while the result of the election is determined and established by the electoral board. The Öffentlichkeitsgrundsatz is the reason why it isn’t constitutional to use voting machines in Germany.
Thankfully because I don't trust those things. A paper vote you can always control, voting machines can be misusued way too easy. Which is why many democratic minded countries don't use them, even those which are more in tune which new technology as the German population is.
Very much this. As someone who was a volunteer for elections a few times, I can tell you, there actually was a dad bringing his 2 sons to the counting to watch so they could see democracy work. After the count all the votes are sealed in envelopes (or boxes) for possible recounts. Before the vote starts, everyone is asked to look into the ballot box to make sure no pre-filled ballots are already in there. One person is always watching the box to make sure only one ballot is thrown in by every voter. Everything is counted twice and thrice over. And for that voting area I was in, there where like 600 total eligeble voters, but over 20 volunteers to keep an eye on things and each other. Frauding an election in that way is insanely hard, as to many people are present and the best you could to might be 5 votes missing or added - for risking prison. And, as you mentioned, citizens can walk in and watch the whole process of counting from start to finish.
@@AlexJones-ue1ll And for the statistics the ballots are counted again and again: How many voters for the CDU direct candidate suported the CDU with his second vote, supported the SPD, the Greens, etc, etc, etc? . And that is done for each party. That counting takes place in each polling station and the results are then mailed to the "Landeswahlleiter".
@@AlexJones-ue1ll Yeah, and when you go to cast your vote, your name is scratched of a list to ensure that nobody votes multiple times. I mean, even with counting there are mistakes made, but not mistakes which could change the outcome of an election.
@@sk.43821 Bitte den Ironiedetektor einschalten - oder ich hab einfach das Smiley vergessen. Du hast natürlich Recht, aber Andrew hat es trotzdem super auf englisch erklärt.
One doesn't need to bring he notification. It only simplifies finding the right place to vote and helps in finding the list entry to be checkt (yes, all done with real paper in a way every citizen is able to doublecheck the election process). In fact, not even a state ID (Personalausweis/Pass) is needed, just a way to make plausible who you are and that you're the guy noted in the list. The overarching goal is to not put up any bureaucratic border against voting while at the same time making sure only eligible citizens vote.
I can remember the days when one entered the polling place, the poll workers all said, "Hello, Mr./Mrs. Smith! How are you today?" Identification wasn't needed to vote because everyone knew who everyone else was. Maybe when your community has gotten so big that your neighbors are strangers, it's gotten too big for democracy to work any more.
@@bigscarysteve Not really sure about that, as it still works like that. I live in a reasonable sized city (>1.5m ppl), polling stations are still a local thing, each serving just a few streets and staffed (in part) by local volunteers. Not uncommon to know and be known when entering.
@@HansFranke It sure doesn't work like that where I live. I live in a town of 25000, yet my town only has five polling places now, and the government goes out of its way to send poll workers to a polling place where they don't live and likely don't know anyone.
The second largest lower house, but if you combine the UK House of Commons with the House of Lords, which both constitute the UK Parliament, the UK has the second largest parliament in the world after China and before Germany.
I'm not going to argue it's the only or the largest problem with United States democracy, but I do think expecting a member of the House of Representatives to represent 700,000+ people (and sometimes over as large an area as an entire state!) is completely unreasonable, regularly deprives smaller communities of any representation at all, makes it much harder for non-establishment candidates to win, makes it easier for moneyed interests buy or bribe representatives, and actively hinders voters and members of the public in trying to hold those same representatives accountable. Which, all things considered, is probably why the number of Representatives hasn't increased since 1913, while the American population has more than tripled over the same period!
@@thewuurm I see your point. However, there's also a point to be made against too many members of Parliament. I worked for two members of the Bundestag during the last and the current legislation period. And especially in this one, it became really inefficient. Everyone tries to make a name for themselves and get some slice of the cake that is public attention. So there's a plethora of parliamentary inquiries that the administration has to answer instead of focusing on their actual work. Committee meetings, as well as parliamentary sessions are getting longer and longer so that many important topics are being discussed either in the middle of the night with few people attending or not at all. Since the order of business is set by the Ältestenrat (council of senior members), which is assembled proportional to party group sizes, this is used by the government parties to sneakily keep delicate issues away from public awareness. You have to keep in mind: Currently, we're at 2.15 MP's per constituency, and that number is even likely to increase after the next election.
Rewboss videos are always a joy, though I think you did yourself a disservice by explaining the Erststimme first. If, name notwithstanding, you start out with explaining the Zweitstimme as the fundamental proportional result all other shenanigans are then forced to comply with, the overall line of argument is usually more succinct or at least easier to follow for the uninitiated. At heart, the German voting system is strictly proportional with direct member sprinkles on top rather than the other way round.
that's how I always thought of it too, especialy since my fav direct candidate usually doesn't stand a chance and therefore my Zweitstimme feels much more important
Germany, you may want to look at the Swiss proporz system. Number of seats is fixed. Representation is proportional. Granted, it can be complicated for the voter, if they decide not to run with a pre-printed party list. (You can mix and match freely, combining candidates from the far left with those from the far right. Not that this is particularly sensible, but you can.) You get as many candidate votes as there are seats in your canton (state, doubling as districts here). You can list any one candidate's name twice, if you want to increase their chances. Each candidate's vote is first counted for their party. That gives the proportional distribution of seats. In each party's representation the seats are then assigned to the candidates with the most votes.
We do use this system for some local elections, at least here in Hesse. It certainly looks more complicated than it actually is. The terminology we're using doesn't really help: Spreading your votes across several party lists is called "panaschieren" while giving multiple votes to a single candidate is called "kumulieren".
@@WINTERwaves you just stirred up memories from "Politikunterricht" back at school which I thought went lost forever (well I would have thought they were lost if I could remember them)
@@WINTERwavesThe video was not the issue, going down the rabbit hole of reading comments was. At least it did not remind me of early history lessons. I remember those quite well (the lessons, not the content) as for whatever reason I seemed to be one of the few not regularly falling asleep...
The problem that the constitutional court weight in were not the overhanging mandates per se. The Problem was the negative vote weight. Meaning if you had overhanging mandates, more votes in second vote could actually mean less seats for a party. Should I explain this further?
Sure, but the problem of negative vote weight is caused by the practice of allowing overhang seats. I simplified my explanation to keep it as brief as possible.
Another reason the Bundestag is so big is that the 598 seats are first allocated to the 16 states using the number of Germans living in each state and then the seats that every state has get distributed to the different parties. Since voter turnout isn’t the same in each state this isn’t very accurate and the parties that are disadvantaged need to have even more additional representatives to compensate for this.
yes, that's another problem ... they should change the system to abolish the division into 16 separate (state-level) elections and consider the percentages on the national level. Probably some Overhang mandates of different parties in different states would cancel out, resulting in a smaller number of representatives.
They already have 16 state governments with their own election. And guesses are that this your Bundestag could reach up to 1000 members in worst case. It's just insane. Would be better to separate the constituencies to give each one seat that makes 50% of the Bundestag (299) und the other 300 for the party election.
Playing your first against your second vote has been a head-game for ages. At 72 I still do not claim that I mastered it correctly. And many people confuse the first vote with electing a candidate for their local government 😃
When Rewboss is the first source that is able to explain the German voting system to me as a German potatoe (or kraut if you are not from Germany). Good job👍
0:35 you don't actually need to bring your ID, you just need something that identifies you. That can also be the notification that you received or your wife who goes with you and has her stuff and can verify your identity. Please bring your notification, it makes it sooooo much easier for the helpers in your Wahllokal because your number in the electoral roll is printed on it.
They normally have to accept the notification card if you vote in your registered location. But in doubt they can ask for additional proof, so it’s never wrong to take the ID (PA) with you. BWO §56 (4).
I feel for you. Must be hard to see almost everybody being stupid after you thought that election was important. But take heart: The next time you know, like us who have seen the '98 elections, that SPD and Greens can't do shit because they are almost as stupid as the other ones and lack the backing of business and have to at least try to remedy the crap the conservatives have fucked up.
I think we always had the overhang mandates. In the last decades the large parties got smaller but still got most of the direct mandates and this increases the number of overhang mandates and the need to compensate them thru the party list. This time they changed the rules to get a smaller parliament again but they changed it in a way that up to three overhang mandates are not compensated. It is uncertain what the outcome will be but most likely the large parties, especially the CSU in Bayern and the CDU in some states will get a higher percentage in seats than the should have according to the second party votes. It is also uncertain how much smaller the Bundestag will get thru this. Probably it still will be bigger than last time. The CSU, the party, that most likely will get a higher representation has refused to every other fair change in election system and because they are part of Merkel's coalition they got thru with it despite that a large majority in the Bundestag would have chosen a different solution.
Good sound mate. Love the new mic. Very clear and love the channel. Subbed. As a first time voter in Germany, I am anxious about the number of people who have indicated that they are undecided. It could result in none of the parties being strong enough to form a government. Netherlands say "hold my beer". Jokes aside. I can't stress this enough. It doesn't matter that people are undecided. Please go out and vote. It's the most important election for a lot of people. Everything is at stake.
When I go vote I always just show the notification and they have never asked me for any form of ID, so in theory I could give my notification to another person of similar age and they could vote twice, once with their own notification and once with mine (as long as they don't have the exact same voting location). I feel like there are probably some cases in Germany where someone doesn't care about politics and isn't interested in voting and a family member just takes their notification out of the mail and sends someone else to go vote with it. Obviously this isn't legal, so I am not advocating for it. Just pointing out that it is possible and probably happening at least on a very small scale.
In Berlin we even have six votes this election! Two for the federal parliament (as explained), two for the Berlin senate (same concept), one for the local district in Berlin and one for a referendum/petition. A lot of decisions and a lot of paper 😅
Same in Lower Saxony, Two federal, one for mayor, one for the local Ortsrat (Village/Town-council), one for the Stadtrat (City-council) and one for the Kreistag (District-council). But the voting is done on two different Sundays.
The two vote system also has an advantage for people living in areas where usually the same parties win the elections. If you are from Bavaria it is unlikely that the direct mandate goes to any other party than the CSU. But with the second vote you do acutally have a vote that sort of counts if you intend not to vote conservative.
True, I'd actually be fine with trashing the first vote. Hardly anybody knows or cares about their direct mandate, especially since the majority actually didn't vote for them in most cases.
@@-vaniii- yep, although this year I actually put a lot of thought into it despite knowing that the conservative candidate will win anyway. But if it was the UK, then that would be it. At least I have a second vote here!
I wish the United States had a larger House of Representatives. The largest voting district have ~one million residents, while the smallest have half of one million. It’s grossly unrepresentative for the difference btwn sets populations to be up to fifty percent. The large population also flies in the face of the notion that representatives are familiar with their district (its hard to adequately represent one million people)
They are already guessing that depending on the overhang that some partys could get the Bundestag could get pumpt up to 1000 members. That's just insane
It should be mentioned that the 5% rule invalidates a lot of votes for smaller parties and a preference or multi vote system would help here a bit. Also the first vote can be very frustrating as a very large number of votes for second or third candidate is always „overruled“ by the majority. For that reason improving the second vote system/unfairness is a big win
I don't know, the 5% are debatable but I think a rule to close one way to a blocked parliament is sensible. But a reform aside from that sounds good to me. But I have to vehemently disagree with your second point. Arguing that somebody, who didn't get a majority in an election for one position, should still be elected is idiotic. What should certainly be changed is that directly elected MPs count less than indirectly elected ones. Having the directly elected people loose their seat when there is a mismatch with the indirectly elected ones is an egregious perversion of democracy.
@@beageler it’s not about electing a second vote, it’s about avoiding voters to have vote strategically in a “all or nothing” vote. With preference vote or backup vote you can reduce this.
Beside the ID card and the noticfication there is another thing you have to bring: your own pen. At least in my letter of notification it is stated that I should bring my own pen please. They did it also for the state election due to Corona.
well.. youre mixing up HAVE TO and SHOULD ... PLEASE. Pretty sure they wont deny you the vote, if you dont have a pen => HAVE TO, but would appreciate you bringing your own pen => SHOULD.. PLEASE. thats a huuuuuge difference. ...and it isnt mentioned in my notification at all.
@@MrNukedawhales My letter has a litte box. *Bitte bringen Sie zur Wahl mit* - diesen Brief - Ihren Personalausweis oder Reisepass - einen med. Mund-Nasen-Schutz bzw. eine FFP2-Maske - einen eigenen Stift
😃 I didn't even see that - good that you reminded me - pre-Corona that was almost frowned upon. (Like with a wedding registration you were supposed to only use registered, official pens 😃)
Is that a real voting instruction that gets sent out with the rest of the voting documents? If yes, then they have a good sense of humor calling the FDP candidate Berthold Brecht.
Yeah, and Udo Lindenberg and Nina Hagen running for the CDU... Ester Schweins, Stefan Jürgens, WIgald Boning for the FDP, Albrecht Dürer and Otto Dix for the Greens... not to mention the candidate "Max Mustermann". "Biedermayer" running for the AfD kinda fits, though. But, no. Even at first glance you can easily see that this isn't a real ballot. Way too few parties and candidates to choose from.
No, it is not. Clara Schumann was depicted on the 100 DM note and lived from 1819 to 1896. Also the lists on the right half consist of people who (mostly) all have the same jobs. SPD is actors, CDU singers, FDP comedians and actors, Grüne artists.
They don’t send out any exemplary ballot with the Wahlbenachrichtigung. It’s not anything official, as far as I can tell. Note that the instructions on the top are present on the real ballots as-well. If you request a Wahlschein for voting by mail, then they send you a ballot, too, but that one then - of course - contains the real names of candidates (and parties). I don’t exactly know which one (Wahlbenachrichtigung or Briefwahlunterlagen) you’d consider “voting documents”.
To clarify: I mocked up the ballot paper myself. Actually, I did it for a video I made about the 2017 elections, and I just updated the date at the top.
I'm moving out of germany this month so i had to apply to vote per mail. Just got my papers today, so now i have the joy of picking the party i dislike least before anyone else does. Then again, once i've voted i get to see all the others struggle while i can relax.
"geheime Wahl" is the contrast to "offene Wahl" that we know from assemblies in clubs or societies. People raise their hands and so everybody can see which side you are on. In parliamentary elections that would mean that people openly declare who they vote for. That is extremely public and easy to observe but it can lead to discrimination of people or people will not openly say what they really want for fear of reprisals.
I didn't notice the new microphone. That is a good thing. I watched another video before this one, and there I noticed the audio setup, because it sounded horrible.
Another problem with MMP, which happens in tge 3 South Wales region, the more a parties wins constituency in a region, the less a vote is worth, Labour gets the most votes in the party list, but because they win all the seats, they don't get any extra.
Simple Solution. Build a Bigger Building for the Bundestag. Because Frankly. This System is Good. As it Guarantees that we get Proportional Representation while at the same time you have People to Represent the Local Areas. So rather than Changing a Cornerstone of the Democratic System which actually works pretty nicely so far. I think the much better Answer would be to instead Change the Building to Accomondate that Systems Needs.
@@SabineThinkerbellum Hell No. Then we would have 598 First Pass to Post. Which would Result in a similar Crabshow like the British where a Party can end up having 80% of the Seats while having 40% of the Votes. Because they ended up Winning Seats in 80% of the Constituencies each with only like 30-40% due to there being 3-4 Candiates. So that System would be Complete Rubbish and entirely Undemocratic. (And Yes. I am calling the UK Undemocratic. As their Government does not Represent the people)
@@burgerpommes2001 That would mean having less Constituencies. But that would also mean that the Local Representation gets Cut back Significantly. Thus the Direct Mandates having to Represent a much bigger amount of People.
The proportional representation system reminded me of the plurinominal system over here in Mexico, though unfortunately, we don't get to choose directly which party gets the proportional seats in congress
You left out "early voting". In every voting district, there is a there is a polling station (usually in the town hall) where you can cast your vote in person as soon as you receive your notification.
if you want to vote early (by letter) you have to aply for it. As he said you can not just drop your vote of at the town hall without having aplied for the "briefwahl". and he did also say that you can either aply for that in written form or online. the notification itself does not contain the voting list (stimmzettel) you get send it by post if you applied for the briefwahl of they hand it to you at the polling station. source: because of my job i have no time to go to the polling station since i am at work on sundays so i always do "Briefwahl"
@@relgeiz2 Just looked at my notification. That seems not to be an option here. But what you can do is apply for a postal vote and then drop of you vote at the election office in person instead of dropping it into a mailbox. you also need to apply for a postal vote if you want to vote in a polling station outside your constituancy, so you can bring the correct for for your constituancy which they of course do not have in polling stations outside.
In two federal states, parties did not submit the list of candidates properly and on time. So this party was struck off the ballot paper. The individual canidates can, however, be selected. The parties should prepare better. The SSW only competes in a few constituencies, but as a minority, the SSW is exempt from the 5% hurdle. It is expected that the SSW gets one seat.
I want to add that many in the us think the House of Representatives is too small, having not really increased its membership since the country’s population was 1/3 its current size!
I live in a village of less than 500 inhabitants, so in practice, I don't have to bring anything. They'd of course be happy when I brought the voting notice, so they can more easily file it. - This year, my main concern is not the number of seats in the Bundestag, but that so many people are undecided whom to vote for, which may lead to a considerable number of non-voters, and THAT always caused a rise of the right-wingers as they know how to mobilize their cronies. So this is SERIOUS, dear fellow Germans: Go vote for ANYONE, but go!
I would also urge our fellow voters to stop voting AGAINST something and instead pick one or two important topics that you absolutely feel that need to be adressed in the next 4 years. Not right now at this moment, over the course of 4 years. And then vote for the party that not only says it will do that, but that you know will actually try to. And ignore everything you don't like in their program. Forget whether you are a conservative or lefty at heart, just vote for the most pressing issue in your mind and the rest will sort itself out later. But whatever you do, make sure the cross coalition between conservatives and lefties is over and that only one of the two current parties in the government, stay in the next.
@@Quotenwagnerianer I'm not sure whether I can agree with your initial arguing. I agree as far as standing for something can be better than standing against something, but if you don't have a better proposal, I think "stop it now!" is a reasonable intermediate solution.
@@sk.43821 What if they can't form a coalition? I can imagine a country without a working government, at least for a few months. We get along alright here on a local scale, Berlin is far away. That doesn't mean that Bavaria should leave the federal republic, although by the constitution, we could do that. But the term "Brexit" is already occupied, and "Bavexit" sounds stupid.
As long as we had just two big parties and the liberals and then the "greens" as a third and fourth, small, power in parliament, the arithmetics with 50% of the Bundestag filled with the winners of a constituency and the rest filled up from the party lists to make the result match the people's demand worked well . But now we have five or so powers in the house and that means that candidates can win in a constituency with no more than (let us say) 30% of the first votes. That is the reason for all those massive "overhangs".
00:38min No, that's not ture. You just need your passport not the notification you received. At the poll stations they have long lists will all citizens "allowed" to vote in this area. If you go to your local poll station, the one that is mentioned in the letter, you only need your passport. You do need both, if you are going to vote in another poll station that's not your local one. edit: It's also nice to know that the whole system depends on non political affiliated civilians doing volunteer work in the polling stations. The stations have to be run and overseenn by the public and everyone has the right to be there and look what's going on on voting day.
The best way to get a smaller Bundestag if you are in Bavaria is to vote for the most popular candidate not from the CSU with your first vote (as they usually get all direct mandates of Bavaria but are predicted to have a poor list-result, this difference will be responsible for most of the blow up).
I saw an article in "Spiegel Online " that describes this very well, its title is "Strategisches Wählen Wie der XXL-Bundestag noch verhindert werden kann" (I'd say: recommended lecture especially for Non-CSU voters in Bavaria)
Fehler in der deutschen Übersetzung bei 2:04 - bis jetzt ist das eine Mehrheitswahl, nicht Verhältniswahl; bei "personalisierte Verhältniswahl" bezieht sich "Verhältniswahl" auf die Zweitstimme bzw eine Verteilung der Sitze nach Stimmen und "personalisiert" auf die Erststimme bzw die Möglichkeit, eine bestimmte Person direkt für den Wahlkreis zu wählen. Gäbe es nur die Erststimme, wäre es eine Mehrheitswahl und keine Verhältniswahl.
Back when I was a college student (long before the advent of the World Wide Web), I remember reading somewhere during research for a political science class that the maximum number of seats that a legislature could have before it got too big to work properly was 661. I haven't been able to find this claim again using Google. However, if whoever I was reading was correct, then Germany has drifted into a danger zone.
For making policy there are mainly two danger points in the legislature growing to big. If anyone has the right to speak up in the assembly (and everyone should have the right to) and things just get delayed because of everyone having to say something. Or if, what may be the outcome this year, you have a number of parties with certain amount of votes, but no clear majority and even in a coalition you may have to rely on a paper thin majority of votes. Unless all politicians of either the ruling coalition agree on something to pass a new legislation with their vote, which gets more unlikely with more people involved, you have pretty good chances to get nothing done and decided. Unless members of the opposition agree on voting for something as they see the benefit instead of just voting against something because they are in the opposition. All parties should have a common goal in mind instead of trying to profile their party just for the sake of disagreeing to another parties attempts of helping a cause. And yes, sometimes a compromise to the own ideas has to be made even if something in regard to the personal opinion goes to far or not far enough.
Your id card is actually not necessary if you have your notification. The notification is verified by fact that you are a registered citizen and is therefore considered to be a deed. Because most people don't know or understand that and are irritated if you don't check the id the election officials are encouraged to do so. When I volunteer at the elections I tend not to check the ID.
You are asked to bring ID with you; it may not be routinely checked, but if there is any doubt it is useful for an official to be able to double-check that the name on the notification matches that on a photo ID.
No. You still get the directly elected MP. They just elevate the second vote to as important as the first one. And guess what, they reformed the system so the directly elected MPs aren't guaranteed anymore, THAT made the first vote worth less.
I would have rather less of a problem witch the size of Bundestags if only more representatives would attend the sessions. Watching debates with far less than 50 % seats taken always makes me angry a bit.
Most of the real work goes on in committees and offices, and Bundestag members can't spend all their time in debates. Unless it's a debate about something of truly national importance, there's no point in having hundreds of people present who have nothing to say on the subject.
Could always be worse. You could have your representative get naked in front of the camera during a session of parliament. In Canada, we had one MP do it two different times... "accidentally" of course.
You are allowed to vote if you are at least 18 yrs old *on election day* , have lived in Germany for at least 3 months and have german citizenship. So, yea, you can vote, and you *should* have already recieved the election voting card of your local constituency. If not, just ask there =)
Election day is Sept. 26th. As rewboss said in the video, if you lost your notification, just find your local polling station and go there on election day with your ID card (Personalausweis) or other identification.
If you really aren't in the voter registry - edit: which is very unlikely - you should go to your local Bürgerhaus (or whatever it is called in your state) by Friday at latest! There is a timeframe of only 5 days (20st day before the election to 16th day before the election) to correct that if you haven't received your notifcation.
Well, the second vote is more important, the first vote - the vote for the local candidate - is usually considered as less important. And as far as I noticed, the direct local candidates are usually unknown to most of the voters
Most often, the candidates follow only the ideas of their party, they don't vote individually for their region. So this entire idea of having a region represented is quiet meaningless. It most often doesn't hurt anybody cause regions are not that different anyway, people have same problems, wishes , ideas, in almost the entire country.
Hmm, mir wurde das in der Schule beigebracht (Niedersachsen), rechtzeitig bevor die ersten Schüler der Klasse 16 wurden (und damit in Kommunal und Landtagswahlen teilnehmen konnten)
I don´t like how in each individual Wahlkreis, there is no need to get a majority and you don´t at least rank the candidates or have a runoff from the top two if nobody has a majority. The candidates are so split they can have a local candidate win with just about a third of the votes for them personally even if in a ranked or runoff system, someone else would have won. That wouldn´t affect the overall balance of seats by party but it does affect who you get, and especially if Germany were to use open lists like in Bavaria, it would be a significantly bigger deal to win a local mandate with the need to represent as many people as possible to make you dependent on many sides where that is possible. It also has the issue of safe seats, which makes the incumbents tend to be lazy and dependent on their party congress alone to win, and makes everyone else in a state of disorder with less incentive to run well, even if they do have incentives to try to prop up the vote overall.
I highly doubt that would make much of a difference. The vast majority of people have no idea who their local representative is let alone have an opinion about any of the candidates in their constituency beyond party affiliation and maybe some weak bias based on the candidate’s profession (the latter is listed on the ballot paper). About 90% of the ‘Erststimme’ match the political side of the ‘Zweitstimme’. If something like an instant run-off system were used for the Erststimme, this would largely just reduce the number of overhang mandates and secondly shift the decision power on which persons end up in the Bundestag somewhat from the Landesparteitag to the local party associations (who select which candidates gets put on the ballot in each constituency). Though that effect would vary from party to party. For the CDU/CSU the effect would be the reverse, with fewer members of their parliamentary group having been selected by local committees and more by their state party conventions.
You confused majority, qualified majority and absolute majority. You make it sound as if elections in Germany weren't won by majority, when they most certainly are. Problem with leaving off the exact terminology is that there are people who don't just want to write less words or don't care much about the exact terms but want to make the system look undemocratic. No need to help those idiots by normalising it.
Did you put careful thought into where you put your example voting crosses on the example voting ballot? Do you want your American viewers to acuse you of being a communist? ;) (I can totally dig the cross for the Linke, however the Grüne are not really my favourite, too incompetent in anything but measures against climate change.)
But that is what we need right now. They should at least be PART of the Gouvernment, or else those Guys start Thinking about Climate Change when they notice Money can´t be eaten
@@albussr1589 We need them as part of the government, I totally agree. But this is never in doubt when we look at the election. And we need others who care for social equality and stopping the spread of wealth from the bottom to the top.
Even there they are just so, so dense. I'll never forget them wanting to raise taxes on fuel by 400% without any transitional period or social balancing. IN THE 90'S! Or the wonderful 18 new coal plants to replace the 13 climate neutral nuclear plants that had to be turned off without transition. And there are the obvious current examples. They don't really know what they're talking about and are inept at implementing stuff.
It seems thankfully that never was an issue here in the last decades. Of course as there are humans counting and organizing the vote there may be irregularities, like at some places for the last vote (that might have been on state level though) there had been errors on the first version of the Ballots that had been send out as mail Ballots and I think they had to be reprinted and sent out anew. Good they caught it before election date though. Oh and of course there may be mishaps with turned figures in the numbers submitted, which is why the results and what is transmitted have to be confirmed by several persons. And so far people can and do trust the election system here and no one comes up with fairy tales about manipulations that would be technically extremely complicated to do and especially to do without being easily noticed. Also any such manipulation would involve such a high number of persons involved, I am very much in doubt with people literally having the urge to put on social media about everything up to how much they pooped theese days, that I think it would be practically impossible to keep such a thing a secret.
@@jamesalles139here in Germany, where we will have another rather unspectacular vote with this time really unspectacular candidates. I can hardly decide what will be the lesser evil to vote.
just wanted to point out - you actually get more than two votes on state-level and below _(reminder: federal gov -> state -> municipal)_; some of them are split up into multiple, sometimes even dozens of individual votes. There are also additional, municipal elections in some areas _(where the local government is not regulated through state entities, municipalities can be somewhat independent although bound to the same kind of laws)_ - on top of the state elections and federal elections. If you're an enthusiast voter you will love living in germany.
May I direct your attention to Tom Scott's (second) video on that topic, and why electronic voting is a terrible idea? ruclips.net/video/LkH2r-sNjQs/видео.html
In fact. Germany had such machines until 2008 until they were forbidden by the Federal Constitutional Court. The CCC (chaos computer club) is against voting machines and had campaigns against them. And it's the correct thing to be against them, don't fall for the FDP that wants to digitalize and then think after that if it even made sense. To say it with a meme (I work in IT too btw.): I work in IT and that's the reason our house has mechanical locks, mechanical windows, routers using OpenWRT, no smart home crap, etc..
@@muellerhans Yeah. If you hack a voting machine, you can fake hundreds or thousands of votes. If you hack a network of voting machines, you can swing the entire election. Doing the same with paper ballots is basically impossible in our system. Also, machines can fail. Or even worse: they can be bugged and count votes incorrectly. Other countries are already trying to influence our election by spreading disinformation on a large scale. Making it even easier for them would be irresponsible. About smart home stuff: these poor fuckers who couldn't enter their homes or turn the light on when Google had server problems.😅
I don't think it's possible to make a better system, if people want to keep the local representation. Sweden has a proportional parliament, without local much representation. No one really cares, because all politicians live the remainder of their lives in Stockholm anyway. I'm impressed that you have a video without dislikes (and 686 upvotes). Keep doing the explainers.
Easy. The obvious solution would be to have separate pools for direct and indirect mandates (the reforms to get rid of the Überhangmandate went the way of invalidating directly elected MPs when there is a mismatch, an egregiously undemocratic way IMHO). For a sensible real life system look to Switzerland.
1st vote is kinda a bummer. If your vote district is 40% CDU and 25% SPD 5%grüne 5%Linke 10%fdp 10%afd you basicly can only vote for SPD or CDU which sucks for smaller parties
The British parliament is bigger: 650 MPs in the House of Commons, and 789 members of the House of Lords. Germany has 709 in the Bundestag and 69 in the Bundesrat. Of course, Germany has the bigger lower chamber, but that's not the whole parliament.
@@rewboss I don't think it would be correct to call the Bundesrat the upper chamber of a parliament. Like the EU Council of Ministers, the Bundesrat is merely a representation of governments. It is definitely a legislative body, but calling it a chamber of a parliament would be a bit of a misnomer.
1) as rewboss pointed out not true - germany has the 7th largest parliament... 2) when you factor in mp / population germany is at around rank 160 with 104k pop per mp. for comparison: the uk has 44k, france 71k, austria 33k, greece 35k, luxembourg 8 000 etcetc. so in comparison the german parliament is tiny.
I knew a few people who think their ideas are actually pretty good. Thought so myself decades ago, but for my taste they went over board long since. Others I know think it does less harm than voting for just any of the smaller parties or not at all, maybe that is what safes their bacon.
And people think this system is complicated. Wonderfully explained, Andrew!
Only Americans think it’s complicated
Well, it kind of is (if you want to go to full detail).
@@ElchiKing Yes.
In New Zealand they have something similar for their elections.
@@Dave_Sisson Many eastern European states were also inspired by the German system when they reformed theirs after the end of the Warsaw Pact.
It's not too complicated, apart from the exact way the overhang and equalising seats are allocated. That's a bit tricky.
You are able to explain the German voting system properly in under 6 minutes. I am impressed.
It is not actually all that complicated and in no way unique.
Also important to know: polling stations are usually within walking distance. And no waiting in line for hours.
When I was a child, not only were the polling places within walking distance, but no identification was necessary. The reason for that was, when my parents walked through the door, the poll workers all said, "Hello, Mr. & Mrs. Smith! How are you today?" There's something to be said for living on a scale where you know your neighbors. That had all gone out the window by the time I was old enough to vote.
And it is allways on a sunday
Good thing if you have to wait: I have to vote at a local bar. So if there are to many people at the same time I just have a seat and a beer. We call it "Überbrückungsbier"
Mines in my old school.
In its cafeteria to be exact.
There is actually a sixth, unwritten election principle invented by the Federal Constitutional Court. It states that the election has to be public (Öffentlichkeitsgrundsatz).
The principle of public elections requires that the poll is held under public scrutiny. The public should have the chance to monitor the essential parts of the electoral process (except for the casting of votes) and the way in which the result is ascertained. This is to be ensured, for example, by the right to be present in the polling station during the poll and while the result of the election is determined and established by the electoral board. The Öffentlichkeitsgrundsatz is the reason why it isn’t constitutional to use voting machines in Germany.
Thankfully because I don't trust those things. A paper vote you can always control, voting machines can be misusued way too easy. Which is why many democratic minded countries don't use them, even those which are more in tune which new technology as the German population is.
Very much this. As someone who was a volunteer for elections a few times, I can tell you, there actually was a dad bringing his 2 sons to the counting to watch so they could see democracy work.
After the count all the votes are sealed in envelopes (or boxes) for possible recounts. Before the vote starts, everyone is asked to look into the ballot box to make sure no pre-filled ballots are already in there. One person is always watching the box to make sure only one ballot is thrown in by every voter. Everything is counted twice and thrice over. And for that voting area I was in, there where like 600 total eligeble voters, but over 20 volunteers to keep an eye on things and each other. Frauding an election in that way is insanely hard, as to many people are present and the best you could to might be 5 votes missing or added - for risking prison. And, as you mentioned, citizens can walk in and watch the whole process of counting from start to finish.
@@AlexJones-ue1ll And for the statistics the ballots are counted again and again: How many voters for the CDU direct candidate suported the CDU with his second vote, supported the SPD, the Greens, etc, etc, etc? . And that is done for each party. That counting takes place in each polling station and the results are then mailed to the "Landeswahlleiter".
@@AlexJones-ue1ll Yeah, and when you go to cast your vote, your name is scratched of a list to ensure that nobody votes multiple times. I mean, even with counting there are mistakes made, but not mistakes which could change the outcome of an election.
Tom Scott: "Why electronic voting is a BAD idea" He sheds some light on these principles, and he has a good point.
Danke! Verständlich in wenigen Sätzen erklärt.
@Hello Chrissies how are you doing?
@@reinhardwolski5391?
@@reinhardwolski5391 wtf?
I finally understood how "Überhangmandate" work...or why we have them. Thanks Andrew!
@@sk.43821 Bitte den Ironiedetektor einschalten - oder ich hab einfach das Smiley vergessen. Du hast natürlich Recht, aber Andrew hat es trotzdem super auf englisch erklärt.
One doesn't need to bring he notification. It only simplifies finding the right place to vote and helps in finding the list entry to be checkt (yes, all done with real paper in a way every citizen is able to doublecheck the election process). In fact, not even a state ID (Personalausweis/Pass) is needed, just a way to make plausible who you are and that you're the guy noted in the list. The overarching goal is to not put up any bureaucratic border against voting while at the same time making sure only eligible citizens vote.
A concept that must seem like utter science-fiction to anyone living in the U.S., THE most free country in the world. ;)
I can remember the days when one entered the polling place, the poll workers all said, "Hello, Mr./Mrs. Smith! How are you today?" Identification wasn't needed to vote because everyone knew who everyone else was. Maybe when your community has gotten so big that your neighbors are strangers, it's gotten too big for democracy to work any more.
@@bigscarysteve Not really sure about that, as it still works like that. I live in a reasonable sized city (>1.5m ppl), polling stations are still a local thing, each serving just a few streets and staffed (in part) by local volunteers. Not uncommon to know and be known when entering.
@@HansFranke It sure doesn't work like that where I live. I live in a town of 25000, yet my town only has five polling places now, and the government goes out of its way to send poll workers to a polling place where they don't live and likely don't know anyone.
@@Quotenwagnerianer And even an official ID/passport requirement wouldn’t be any hurdle since every citizen has to have at least one of them anyway.
The Bundestag is the second largest parliament in the world. But I much prefer over the broken system that the UK or US have.
The second largest lower house, but if you combine the UK House of Commons with the House of Lords, which both constitute the UK Parliament, the UK has the second largest parliament in the world after China and before Germany.
Combining Bundestag and Bundesrat would still come out lower than the UK Parliament.
I'm not going to argue it's the only or the largest problem with United States democracy, but I do think expecting a member of the House of Representatives to represent 700,000+ people (and sometimes over as large an area as an entire state!) is completely unreasonable, regularly deprives smaller communities of any representation at all, makes it much harder for non-establishment candidates to win, makes it easier for moneyed interests buy or bribe representatives, and actively hinders voters and members of the public in trying to hold those same representatives accountable. Which, all things considered, is probably why the number of Representatives hasn't increased since 1913, while the American population has more than tripled over the same period!
@@thewuurm Is the country too big? Or must the parliament triple?
@@thewuurm I see your point. However, there's also a point to be made against too many members of Parliament. I worked for two members of the Bundestag during the last and the current legislation period. And especially in this one, it became really inefficient. Everyone tries to make a name for themselves and get some slice of the cake that is public attention. So there's a plethora of parliamentary inquiries that the administration has to answer instead of focusing on their actual work. Committee meetings, as well as parliamentary sessions are getting longer and longer so that many important topics are being discussed either in the middle of the night with few people attending or not at all. Since the order of business is set by the Ältestenrat (council of senior members), which is assembled proportional to party group sizes, this is used by the government parties to sneakily keep delicate issues away from public awareness.
You have to keep in mind: Currently, we're at 2.15 MP's per constituency, and that number is even likely to increase after the next election.
Already done voting, voted by mail 2 days ago.
Thank you for voting.
@@BrokenCurtain o7
Rewboss videos are always a joy, though I think you did yourself a disservice by explaining the Erststimme first. If, name notwithstanding, you start out with explaining the Zweitstimme as the fundamental proportional result all other shenanigans are then forced to comply with, the overall line of argument is usually more succinct or at least easier to follow for the uninitiated. At heart, the German voting system is strictly proportional with direct member sprinkles on top rather than the other way round.
that's how I always thought of it too, especialy since my fav direct candidate usually doesn't stand a chance and therefore my Zweitstimme feels much more important
Germany, you may want to look at the Swiss proporz system. Number of seats is fixed. Representation is proportional.
Granted, it can be complicated for the voter, if they decide not to run with a pre-printed party list. (You can mix and match freely, combining candidates from the far left with those from the far right. Not that this is particularly sensible, but you can.)
You get as many candidate votes as there are seats in your canton (state, doubling as districts here). You can list any one candidate's name twice, if you want to increase their chances.
Each candidate's vote is first counted for their party. That gives the proportional distribution of seats. In each party's representation the seats are then assigned to the candidates with the most votes.
We do use this system for some local elections, at least here in Hesse. It certainly looks more complicated than it actually is. The terminology we're using doesn't really help: Spreading your votes across several party lists is called "panaschieren" while giving multiple votes to a single candidate is called "kumulieren".
@@WINTERwaves you just stirred up memories from "Politikunterricht" back at school which I thought went lost forever (well I would have thought they were lost if I could remember them)
@@alexanderkupke920 Well, I hope those memories weren't too traumatic. But that's what you get for clicking on a video like this ;)
@@WINTERwavesThe video was not the issue, going down the rabbit hole of reading comments was. At least it did not remind me of early history lessons. I remember those quite well (the lessons, not the content) as for whatever reason I seemed to be one of the few not regularly falling asleep...
@@alexanderkupke920 Oh, I see. Reading comments even when I know I shouldn't, is a habit I can't quite seem to shake off, either.
I’m german and i learn the german vote system with you 😂😂
The problem that the constitutional court weight in were not the overhanging mandates per se. The Problem was the negative vote weight. Meaning if you had overhanging mandates, more votes in second vote could actually mean less seats for a party. Should I explain this further?
Sure, but the problem of negative vote weight is caused by the practice of allowing overhang seats. I simplified my explanation to keep it as brief as possible.
Another reason the Bundestag is so big is that the 598 seats are first allocated to the 16 states using the number of Germans living in each state and then the seats that every state has get distributed to the different parties. Since voter turnout isn’t the same in each state this isn’t very accurate and the parties that are disadvantaged need to have even more additional representatives to compensate for this.
yes, that's another problem
... they should change the system to abolish the division into 16 separate (state-level) elections and consider the percentages on the national level. Probably some Overhang mandates of different parties in different states would cancel out, resulting in a smaller number of representatives.
They already have 16 state governments with their own election. And guesses are that this your Bundestag could reach up to 1000 members in worst case. It's just insane.
Would be better to separate the constituencies to give each one seat that makes 50% of the Bundestag (299) und the other 300 for the party election.
@@mammutMK2 well, this is not the "worst case" - the number can grow considerably beyond 1000 ... :-(
Wolfgang Schäuble fights for reforms for years.perhaps er need bigger condstituencies,so it maybe.the world certainly wouldn't end.
the new microphone sounds great!
Playing your first against your second vote has been a head-game for ages. At 72 I still do not claim that I mastered it correctly. And many people confuse the first vote with electing a candidate for their local government 😃
When Rewboss is the first source that is able to explain the German voting system to me as a German potatoe (or kraut if you are not from Germany). Good job👍
0:35 you don't actually need to bring your ID, you just need something that identifies you. That can also be the notification that you received or your wife who goes with you and has her stuff and can verify your identity.
Please bring your notification, it makes it sooooo much easier for the helpers in your Wahllokal because your number in the electoral roll is printed on it.
They normally have to accept the notification card if you vote in your registered location. But in doubt they can ask for additional proof, so it’s never wrong to take the ID (PA) with you. BWO §56 (4).
Thanks, I didn't know all of that and this next election is tremendously important.
I feel for you. Must be hard to see almost everybody being stupid after you thought that election was important. But take heart: The next time you know, like us who have seen the '98 elections, that SPD and Greens can't do shit because they are almost as stupid as the other ones and lack the backing of business and have to at least try to remedy the crap the conservatives have fucked up.
I think we always had the overhang mandates. In the last decades the large parties got smaller but still got most of the direct mandates and this increases the number of overhang mandates and the need to compensate them thru the party list.
This time they changed the rules to get a smaller parliament again but they changed it in a way that up to three overhang mandates are not compensated. It is uncertain what the outcome will be but most likely the large parties, especially the CSU in Bayern and the CDU in some states will get a higher percentage in seats than the should have according to the second party votes. It is also uncertain how much smaller the Bundestag will get thru this. Probably it still will be bigger than last time.
The CSU, the party, that most likely will get a higher representation has refused to every other fair change in election system and because they are part of Merkel's coalition they got thru with it despite that a large majority in the Bundestag would have chosen a different solution.
Good sound mate. Love the new mic. Very clear and love the channel. Subbed.
As a first time voter in Germany, I am anxious about the number of people who have indicated that they are undecided. It could result in none of the parties being strong enough to form a government. Netherlands say "hold my beer".
Jokes aside. I can't stress this enough. It doesn't matter that people are undecided. Please go out and vote. It's the most important election for a lot of people. Everything is at stake.
When I go vote I always just show the notification and they have never asked me for any form of ID, so in theory I could give my notification to another person of similar age and they could vote twice, once with their own notification and once with mine (as long as they don't have the exact same voting location). I feel like there are probably some cases in Germany where someone doesn't care about politics and isn't interested in voting and a family member just takes their notification out of the mail and sends someone else to go vote with it. Obviously this isn't legal, so I am not advocating for it. Just pointing out that it is possible and probably happening at least on a very small scale.
If you think that happens often enough that a change is really needed, you should wear your tin foil hat.
In Berlin we even have six votes this election! Two for the federal parliament (as explained), two for the Berlin senate (same concept), one for the local district in Berlin and one for a referendum/petition. A lot of decisions and a lot of paper 😅
Same in Lower Saxony, Two federal, one for mayor, one for the local Ortsrat (Village/Town-council), one for the Stadtrat (City-council) and one for the Kreistag (District-council). But the voting is done on two different Sundays.
The two vote system also has an advantage for people living in areas where usually the same parties win the elections. If you are from Bavaria it is unlikely that the direct mandate goes to any other party than the CSU. But with the second vote you do acutally have a vote that sort of counts if you intend not to vote conservative.
True, I'd actually be fine with trashing the first vote. Hardly anybody knows or cares about their direct mandate, especially since the majority actually didn't vote for them in most cases.
@@-vaniii- yep, although this year I actually put a lot of thought into it despite knowing that the conservative candidate will win anyway. But if it was the UK, then that would be it. At least I have a second vote here!
I wish the United States had a larger House of Representatives. The largest voting district have ~one million residents, while the smallest have half of one million. It’s grossly unrepresentative for the difference btwn sets populations to be up to fifty percent. The large population also flies in the face of the notion that representatives are familiar with their district (its hard to adequately represent one million people)
Genau so ist es. Und genau so ist es gedacht. Sehr schön erklärt.
Nice hearing the music at the end :)
The best explanation I've seen thus far. Thanks
Thanks for uploading this!
About the big number of seats now. There is some talk about reducing the number of constituencies to 250.
They are already guessing that depending on the overhang that some partys could get the Bundestag could get pumpt up to 1000 members. That's just insane
It should be mentioned that the 5% rule invalidates a lot of votes for smaller parties and a preference or multi vote system would help here a bit. Also the first vote can be very frustrating as a very large number of votes for second or third candidate is always „overruled“ by the majority. For that reason improving the second vote system/unfairness is a big win
I don't know, the 5% are debatable but I think a rule to close one way to a blocked parliament is sensible. But a reform aside from that sounds good to me.
But I have to vehemently disagree with your second point. Arguing that somebody, who didn't get a majority in an election for one position, should still be elected is idiotic.
What should certainly be changed is that directly elected MPs count less than indirectly elected ones. Having the directly elected people loose their seat when there is a mismatch with the indirectly elected ones is an egregious perversion of democracy.
@@beageler it’s not about electing a second vote, it’s about avoiding voters to have vote strategically in a “all or nothing” vote. With preference vote or backup vote you can reduce this.
ich lerne über jedes thema was du machst was neues.
Beside the ID card and the noticfication there is another thing you have to bring: your own pen.
At least in my letter of notification it is stated that I should bring my own pen please.
They did it also for the state election due to Corona.
well.. youre mixing up HAVE TO and SHOULD ... PLEASE. Pretty sure they wont deny you the vote, if you dont have a pen => HAVE TO, but would appreciate you bringing your own pen => SHOULD.. PLEASE. thats a huuuuuge difference.
...and it isnt mentioned in my notification at all.
@@MrNukedawhales
My letter has a litte box.
*Bitte bringen Sie zur Wahl mit*
- diesen Brief
- Ihren Personalausweis oder Reisepass
- einen med. Mund-Nasen-Schutz bzw. eine FFP2-Maske
- einen eigenen Stift
😃 I didn't even see that - good that you reminded me - pre-Corona that was almost frowned upon. (Like with a wedding registration you were supposed to only use registered, official pens 😃)
Is that a real voting instruction that gets sent out with the rest of the voting documents? If yes, then they have a good sense of humor calling the FDP candidate Berthold Brecht.
Yeah, and Udo Lindenberg and Nina Hagen running for the CDU... Ester Schweins, Stefan Jürgens, WIgald Boning for the FDP, Albrecht Dürer and Otto Dix for the Greens... not to mention the candidate "Max Mustermann".
"Biedermayer" running for the AfD kinda fits, though.
But, no. Even at first glance you can easily see that this isn't a real ballot. Way too few parties and candidates to choose from.
No, it is not. Clara Schumann was depicted on the 100 DM note and lived from 1819 to 1896. Also the lists on the right half consist of people who (mostly) all have the same jobs. SPD is actors, CDU singers, FDP comedians and actors, Grüne artists.
They don’t send out any exemplary ballot with the Wahlbenachrichtigung. It’s not anything official, as far as I can tell. Note that the instructions on the top are present on the real ballots as-well. If you request a Wahlschein for voting by mail, then they send you a ballot, too, but that one then - of course - contains the real names of candidates (and parties). I don’t exactly know which one (Wahlbenachrichtigung or Briefwahlunterlagen) you’d consider “voting documents”.
To clarify: I mocked up the ballot paper myself. Actually, I did it for a video I made about the 2017 elections, and I just updated the date at the top.
Biedermayer a joke?
Our Afd canidate at election is Biedermann Wilfried
(#218 München-Ost)
I'm moving out of germany this month so i had to apply to vote per mail. Just got my papers today, so now i have the joy of picking the party i dislike least before anyone else does. Then again, once i've voted i get to see all the others struggle while i can relax.
Hey, you did my video idea! Thank you!
"geheime Wahl" is the contrast to "offene Wahl" that we know from assemblies in clubs or societies. People raise their hands and so everybody can see which side you are on. In parliamentary elections that would mean that people openly declare who they vote for. That is extremely public and easy to observe but it can lead to discrimination of people or people will not openly say what they really want for fear of reprisals.
Berhold Brecht for the FDP... i like that sense of humor.
guter überblick!
I didn't notice the new microphone. That is a good thing. I watched another video before this one, and there I noticed the audio setup, because it sounded horrible.
"Horrible"? Really? And you did not even notice that the audio in this video was not "horrible"? I think you don't know what "horrible" means.
Bloopers are here, great
Another problem with MMP, which happens in tge 3 South Wales region, the more a parties wins constituency in a region, the less a vote is worth, Labour gets the most votes in the party list, but because they win all the seats, they don't get any extra.
Thanks for explaining, I'm embarrassed to admit I really needed that lol
Short answer, one for the party and the other one to go auf Nummer sicher.
Simple Solution. Build a Bigger Building for the Bundestag.
Because Frankly. This System is Good. As it Guarantees that we get Proportional Representation while at the same time you have People to Represent the Local Areas.
So rather than Changing a Cornerstone of the Democratic System which actually works pretty nicely so far.
I think the much better Answer would be to instead Change the Building to Accomondate that Systems Needs.
or just change the size every direct mandate represents
@@burgerpommes2001 yeah like half the number. would be much better tbh
Or just elect smaller representatives that fit into the building!
Zwerge an die Macht!
Maximalgröße für Parlamentarier einführen!
@@SabineThinkerbellum
Hell No.
Then we would have 598 First Pass to Post. Which would Result in a similar Crabshow like the British where a Party can end up having 80% of the Seats while having 40% of the Votes. Because they ended up Winning Seats in 80% of the Constituencies each with only like 30-40% due to there being 3-4 Candiates.
So that System would be Complete Rubbish and entirely Undemocratic.
(And Yes. I am calling the UK Undemocratic. As their Government does not Represent the people)
@@burgerpommes2001
That would mean having less Constituencies. But that would also mean that the Local Representation gets Cut back Significantly.
Thus the Direct Mandates having to Represent a much bigger amount of People.
The proportional representation system reminded me of the plurinominal system over here in Mexico, though unfortunately, we don't get to choose directly which party gets the proportional seats in congress
Thank you very much for this straight explanation. :-)
You left out "early voting". In every voting district, there is a there is a polling station (usually in the town hall) where you can cast your vote in person as soon as you receive your notification.
if you want to vote early (by letter) you have to aply for it. As he said you can not just drop your vote of at the town hall without having aplied for the "briefwahl". and he did also say that you can either aply for that in written form or online. the notification itself does not contain the voting list (stimmzettel) you get send it by post if you applied for the briefwahl of they hand it to you at the polling station. source: because of my job i have no time to go to the polling station since i am at work on sundays so i always do "Briefwahl"
@@blackforest_fairy You can do early voting in person, just with your notification and your ID card.
@@relgeiz2 Just looked at my notification. That seems not to be an option here. But what you can do is apply for a postal vote and then drop of you vote at the election office in person instead of dropping it into a mailbox. you also need to apply for a postal vote if you want to vote in a polling station outside your constituancy, so you can bring the correct for for your constituancy which they of course do not have in polling stations outside.
In two federal states, parties did not submit the list of candidates properly and on time. So this party was struck off the ballot paper. The individual canidates can, however, be selected. The parties should prepare better.
The SSW only competes in a few constituencies, but as a minority, the SSW is exempt from the 5% hurdle. It is expected that the SSW gets one seat.
One seat can change things, just think about Heide Simonis.
I always thought the second vote is easier to explain.
I want to add that many in the us think the House of Representatives is too small, having not really increased its membership since the country’s population was 1/3 its current size!
I had to watch the overrhang practice explained in ENGLISH to fully understand the system. Democracy can't get more German than that!
You habe two votes
Iconic
Will you do an update if they change it to reduce overhang and leveling seats? Some of those proposed changes seem whack.
Can you explain some of the questions on the Wahlomat please?
Interesting system, not sure I fully understand but better than 1 past post, but what isn't.
I live in a village of less than 500 inhabitants, so in practice, I don't have to bring anything. They'd of course be happy when I brought the voting notice, so they can more easily file it. - This year, my main concern is not the number of seats in the Bundestag, but that so many people are undecided whom to vote for, which may lead to a considerable number of non-voters, and THAT always caused a rise of the right-wingers as they know how to mobilize their cronies. So this is SERIOUS, dear fellow Germans: Go vote for ANYONE, but go!
I would also urge our fellow voters to stop voting AGAINST something and instead pick one or two important topics that you absolutely feel that need to be adressed in the next 4 years.
Not right now at this moment, over the course of 4 years.
And then vote for the party that not only says it will do that, but that you know will actually try to.
And ignore everything you don't like in their program.
Forget whether you are a conservative or lefty at heart, just vote for the most pressing issue in your mind and the rest will sort itself out later.
But whatever you do, make sure the cross coalition between conservatives and lefties is over and that only one of the two current parties in the government, stay in the next.
@@Quotenwagnerianer I'm not sure whether I can agree with your initial arguing. I agree as far as standing for something can be better than standing against something, but if you don't have a better proposal, I think "stop it now!" is a reasonable intermediate solution.
@@Quotenwagnerianer To make sure one party of the current coalition isn't part of the next a conservative person should then vote for FDP, right?
@@sk.43821 What if they can't form a coalition? I can imagine a country without a working government, at least for a few months. We get along alright here on a local scale, Berlin is far away. That doesn't mean that Bavaria should leave the federal republic, although by the constitution, we could do that. But the term "Brexit" is already occupied, and "Bavexit" sounds stupid.
@@sk.43821 Or SPD instead of CDU, CDU instead of SPD, Linke or Grüne. All is possible. Just sticking with the usual vote won't help.
The next Bundestag could end up with up to 1000 members.
As long as we had just two big parties and the liberals and then the "greens" as a third and fourth, small, power in parliament, the arithmetics with 50% of the Bundestag filled with the winners of a constituency and the rest filled up from the party lists to make the result match the people's demand worked well . But now we have five or so powers in the house and that means that candidates can win in a constituency with no more than (let us say) 30% of the first votes. That is the reason for all those massive "overhangs".
00:38min No, that's not ture. You just need your passport not the notification you received. At the poll stations they have long lists will all citizens "allowed" to vote in this area. If you go to your local poll station, the one that is mentioned in the letter, you only need your passport. You do need both, if you are going to vote in another poll station that's not your local one.
edit: It's also nice to know that the whole system depends on non political affiliated civilians doing volunteer work in the polling stations. The stations have to be run and overseenn by the public and everyone has the right to be there and look what's going on on voting day.
I think you don't even need to bring your ID card, when voting in the destined poll station. Drivers licence should be sufficient.
The best way to get a smaller Bundestag if you are in Bavaria is to vote for the most popular candidate not from the CSU with your first vote (as they usually get all direct mandates of Bavaria but are predicted to have a poor list-result, this difference will be responsible for most of the blow up).
you probably mean "if you are in Bavaria" (without the "not")
@@tobyk.4911 yes, thanks. Fixing it
I saw an article in "Spiegel Online " that describes this very well, its title is "Strategisches Wählen
Wie der XXL-Bundestag noch verhindert werden kann"
(I'd say: recommended lecture especially for Non-CSU voters in Bavaria)
Fehler in der deutschen Übersetzung bei 2:04 - bis jetzt ist das eine Mehrheitswahl, nicht Verhältniswahl; bei "personalisierte Verhältniswahl" bezieht sich "Verhältniswahl" auf die Zweitstimme bzw eine Verteilung der Sitze nach Stimmen und "personalisiert" auf die Erststimme bzw die Möglichkeit, eine bestimmte Person direkt für den Wahlkreis zu wählen. Gäbe es nur die Erststimme, wäre es eine Mehrheitswahl und keine Verhältniswahl.
Huch! Ich glaube, das nennt man die Qual der Wahl.
Back when I was a college student (long before the advent of the World Wide Web), I remember reading somewhere during research for a political science class that the maximum number of seats that a legislature could have before it got too big to work properly was 661. I haven't been able to find this claim again using Google. However, if whoever I was reading was correct, then Germany has drifted into a danger zone.
For making policy there are mainly two danger points in the legislature growing to big. If anyone has the right to speak up in the assembly (and everyone should have the right to) and things just get delayed because of everyone having to say something. Or if, what may be the outcome this year, you have a number of parties with certain amount of votes, but no clear majority and even in a coalition you may have to rely on a paper thin majority of votes. Unless all politicians of either the ruling coalition agree on something to pass a new legislation with their vote, which gets more unlikely with more people involved, you have pretty good chances to get nothing done and decided.
Unless members of the opposition agree on voting for something as they see the benefit instead of just voting against something because they are in the opposition.
All parties should have a common goal in mind instead of trying to profile their party just for the sake of disagreeing to another parties attempts of helping a cause. And yes, sometimes a compromise to the own ideas has to be made even if something in regard to the personal opinion goes to far or not far enough.
I like the system ANd no i understand it better. thx andrew
Who wrote all the Celebrity Names on the Ballot Paper? Somehow as a German that's very amusing to read :D
Das war er selber für ein Video zur 2017 Wahl und ja, ist schon witzig cx Bei den Kandidaten würde man doch glatt CDU wählen
Your id card is actually not necessary if you have your notification. The notification is verified by fact that you are a registered citizen and is therefore considered to be a deed. Because most people don't know or understand that and are irritated if you don't check the id the election officials are encouraged to do so. When I volunteer at the elections I tend not to check the ID.
You are asked to bring ID with you; it may not be routinely checked, but if there is any doubt it is useful for an official to be able to double-check that the name on the notification matches that on a photo ID.
so basically the overhang mandate makes the first vote completely useless.
No. You still get the directly elected MP. They just elevate the second vote to as important as the first one. And guess what, they reformed the system so the directly elected MPs aren't guaranteed anymore, THAT made the first vote worth less.
I would have rather less of a problem witch the size of Bundestags if only more representatives would attend the sessions. Watching debates with far less than 50 % seats taken always makes me angry a bit.
Most of the real work goes on in committees and offices, and Bundestag members can't spend all their time in debates. Unless it's a debate about something of truly national importance, there's no point in having hundreds of people present who have nothing to say on the subject.
@@rewboss Well, so they say. Maybe there just was not a single debate of national importance in the past 25 years or so - tu felix germania… ;->
Could always be worse. You could have your representative get naked in front of the camera during a session of parliament. In Canada, we had one MP do it two different times... "accidentally" of course.
lol no way someone is called berthold brecht
good vid
LOL! @1:35
Berthold Brecht of the Free Democratic Party.
I am a German citizen above 18... since last month, and I think I missed deadlines for voting, oder?
eigentlich nicht. solltest noch post bekommen, ansonsten mal bei deinem Bürgerhaus/ortsamt nachfragen
You are allowed to vote if you are at least 18 yrs old *on election day* , have lived in Germany for at least 3 months and have german citizenship. So, yea, you can vote, and you *should* have already recieved the election voting card of your local constituency. If not, just ask there =)
Election day is Sept. 26th. As rewboss said in the video, if you lost your notification, just find your local polling station and go there on election day with your ID card (Personalausweis) or other identification.
If you really aren't in the voter registry - edit: which is very unlikely - you should go to your local Bürgerhaus (or whatever it is called in your state) by Friday at latest! There is a timeframe of only 5 days (20st day before the election to 16th day before the election) to correct that if you haven't received your notifcation.
Jeder der vor dem (oder am) Wahltag 18 wird bekommt eine Wahlbenachrichtigung
Do you tend to have more interest or appreciation for the local candidate in your Wahlkreis than overall the list seats?
most dont care about the local canidate
Well, the second vote is more important, the first vote - the vote for the local candidate - is usually considered as less important. And as far as I noticed, the direct local candidates are usually unknown to most of the voters
@@maltemeyer3171 Do you expect such a big difference on impact to local issues by the origin of a member of the Bundestag?
nope. im willing to bet that 99% of the pop dont even know the name of their local candidate. i dont.. and i consider myself interested in politics...
Most often, the candidates follow only the ideas of their party, they don't vote individually for their region. So this entire idea of having a region represented is quiet meaningless. It most often doesn't hurt anybody cause regions are not that different anyway, people have same problems, wishes , ideas, in almost the entire country.
Not gonna lie, this was really informative
And i AM A GERMAN
Man, our school system is weird...
Hmm, mir wurde das in der Schule beigebracht (Niedersachsen), rechtzeitig bevor die ersten Schüler der Klasse 16 wurden (und damit in Kommunal und Landtagswahlen teilnehmen konnten)
@@ManOfTheWeek596
Dito... man sollte halt nicht im unterricht einschlafen
@@Thomas_Bergel Schulsystem ist ja Bundesländersache, also durchaus möglich, dass es in manchen nicht beigebracht wird
Could you also upload your Videos on Odysee?
LOL
@@martinc.720 Same idea?
I don´t like how in each individual Wahlkreis, there is no need to get a majority and you don´t at least rank the candidates or have a runoff from the top two if nobody has a majority. The candidates are so split they can have a local candidate win with just about a third of the votes for them personally even if in a ranked or runoff system, someone else would have won. That wouldn´t affect the overall balance of seats by party but it does affect who you get, and especially if Germany were to use open lists like in Bavaria, it would be a significantly bigger deal to win a local mandate with the need to represent as many people as possible to make you dependent on many sides where that is possible. It also has the issue of safe seats, which makes the incumbents tend to be lazy and dependent on their party congress alone to win, and makes everyone else in a state of disorder with less incentive to run well, even if they do have incentives to try to prop up the vote overall.
I highly doubt that would make much of a difference. The vast majority of people have no idea who their local representative is let alone have an opinion about any of the candidates in their constituency beyond party affiliation and maybe some weak bias based on the candidate’s profession (the latter is listed on the ballot paper). About 90% of the ‘Erststimme’ match the political side of the ‘Zweitstimme’.
If something like an instant run-off system were used for the Erststimme, this would largely just reduce the number of overhang mandates and secondly shift the decision power on which persons end up in the Bundestag somewhat from the Landesparteitag to the local party associations (who select which candidates gets put on the ballot in each constituency). Though that effect would vary from party to party. For the CDU/CSU the effect would be the reverse, with fewer members of their parliamentary group having been selected by local committees and more by their state party conventions.
You confused majority, qualified majority and absolute majority. You make it sound as if elections in Germany weren't won by majority, when they most certainly are. Problem with leaving off the exact terminology is that there are people who don't just want to write less words or don't care much about the exact terms but want to make the system look undemocratic. No need to help those idiots by normalising it.
Uff, "left" and "green". Good joke
Did you put careful thought into where you put your example voting crosses on the example voting ballot? Do you want your American viewers to acuse you of being a communist? ;) (I can totally dig the cross for the Linke, however the Grüne are not really my favourite, too incompetent in anything but measures against climate change.)
But that is what we need right now. They should at least be PART of the Gouvernment, or else those Guys start Thinking about Climate Change when they notice Money can´t be eaten
@@albussr1589 We need them as part of the government, I totally agree. But this is never in doubt when we look at the election. And we need others who care for social equality and stopping the spread of wealth from the bottom to the top.
Even there they are just so, so dense. I'll never forget them wanting to raise taxes on fuel by 400% without any transitional period or social balancing. IN THE 90'S! Or the wonderful 18 new coal plants to replace the 13 climate neutral nuclear plants that had to be turned off without transition. And there are the obvious current examples. They don't really know what they're talking about and are inept at implementing stuff.
However you are doing it, if there isn't widespread fraud, you are doing well.
It seems thankfully that never was an issue here in the last decades. Of course as there are humans counting and organizing the vote there may be irregularities, like at some places for the last vote (that might have been on state level though) there had been errors on the first version of the Ballots that had been send out as mail Ballots and I think they had to be reprinted and sent out anew. Good they caught it before election date though. Oh and of course there may be mishaps with turned figures in the numbers submitted, which is why the results and what is transmitted have to be confirmed by several persons.
And so far people can and do trust the election system here and no one comes up with fairy tales about manipulations that would be technically extremely complicated to do and especially to do without being easily noticed. Also any such manipulation would involve such a high number of persons involved, I am very much in doubt with people literally having the urge to put on social media about everything up to how much they pooped theese days, that I think it would be practically impossible to keep such a thing a secret.
@@alexanderkupke920 where is it you are blabbering about?
@@jamesalles139here in Germany, where we will have another rather unspectacular vote with this time really unspectacular candidates. I can hardly decide what will be the lesser evil to vote.
@@alexanderkupke920 ok, thanks - I thought someone had gone off-topic. sry
just wanted to point out - you actually get more than two votes on state-level and below _(reminder: federal gov -> state -> municipal)_; some of them are split up into multiple, sometimes even dozens of individual votes. There are also additional, municipal elections in some areas _(where the local government is not regulated through state entities, municipalities can be somewhat independent although bound to the same kind of laws)_ - on top of the state elections and federal elections. If you're an enthusiast voter you will love living in germany.
Ich würde die FDP wählen, wenn die Kandidaten wirklich von "RTL Samstag Nacht" kommen würden... :D
but Brazilian voting on off-line electronic machines still leave the German process behind. but then again... "Digitalisierung"
May I direct your attention to Tom Scott's (second) video on that topic, and why electronic voting is a terrible idea? ruclips.net/video/LkH2r-sNjQs/видео.html
@@ospero7681 I agree. It's terribly flawed.
.
In fact. Germany had such machines until 2008 until they were forbidden by the Federal Constitutional Court. The CCC (chaos computer club) is against voting machines and had campaigns against them. And it's the correct thing to be against them, don't fall for the FDP that wants to digitalize and then think after that if it even made sense. To say it with a meme (I work in IT too btw.): I work in IT and that's the reason our house has mechanical locks, mechanical windows, routers using OpenWRT, no smart home crap, etc..
@@muellerhans Yeah. If you hack a voting machine, you can fake hundreds or thousands of votes. If you hack a network of voting machines, you can swing the entire election. Doing the same with paper ballots is basically impossible in our system. Also, machines can fail. Or even worse: they can be bugged and count votes incorrectly. Other countries are already trying to influence our election by spreading disinformation on a large scale. Making it even easier for them would be irresponsible.
About smart home stuff: these poor fuckers who couldn't enter their homes or turn the light on when Google had server problems.😅
I don't think it's possible to make a better system, if people want to keep the local representation.
Sweden has a proportional parliament, without local much representation. No one really cares, because all politicians live the remainder of their lives in Stockholm anyway.
I'm impressed that you have a video without dislikes (and 686 upvotes). Keep doing the explainers.
Easy. The obvious solution would be to have separate pools for direct and indirect mandates (the reforms to get rid of the Überhangmandate went the way of invalidating directly elected MPs when there is a mismatch, an egregiously undemocratic way IMHO). For a sensible real life system look to Switzerland.
1st vote is kinda a bummer.
If your vote district is 40% CDU and 25% SPD 5%grüne 5%Linke 10%fdp 10%afd
you basicly can only vote for SPD or CDU which sucks for smaller parties
Ahhh... Linke und Grüne! das war zu erwarten. ;-)
To remind:
The second largest parlimemt after China 😁
The British parliament is bigger: 650 MPs in the House of Commons, and 789 members of the House of Lords. Germany has 709 in the Bundestag and 69 in the Bundesrat.
Of course, Germany has the bigger lower chamber, but that's not the whole parliament.
@@rewboss I don't think it would be correct to call the Bundesrat the upper chamber of a parliament. Like the EU Council of Ministers, the Bundesrat is merely a representation of governments.
It is definitely a legislative body, but calling it a chamber of a parliament would be a bit of a misnomer.
One thing that is definitely true, though: The Bundestag is the biggest _democratically elected_ parliament in the world.
@@rewboss Indeed.
1) as rewboss pointed out not true - germany has the 7th largest parliament...
2) when you factor in mp / population germany is at around rank 160 with 104k pop per mp. for comparison: the uk has 44k, france 71k, austria 33k, greece 35k, luxembourg 8 000 etcetc. so in comparison the german parliament is tiny.
linke, grune.
baaasssseeedddd
The 2nd vote is to save the FDP from to be dumped out of parliament.
I knew a few people who think their ideas are actually pretty good. Thought so myself decades ago, but for my taste they went over board long since.
Others I know think it does less harm than voting for just any of the smaller parties or not at all, maybe that is what safes their bacon.
German votes. Or, how we in Germany say: Trauerspiel
Who is "we"?
@@Quotenwagnerianer the most
@@zomskull5571 Who is "the most"?
You keep making these sweeping statements, but you said nothing of substance so far.
@@Quotenwagnerianer well, I can't say ALL germans, 'cause logically somebody is always not this opinion. So it is "the most"