How do German elections work? | CNBC Explains

Germany has an election process so complex that even some Germans don’t understand it. CNBC's Elizabeth Schulze breaks down the voting system before Germans head to the polls later this month.
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[Vaikilli]

The 5% hurdle is not to keep extremist parties out, it's so the parliament is not fractured into hundreds of smaller parties unable to form lasting coalitions.

[pfefferle]

German here. You made a little mistake there in saying that the Zweitstimme (party vote) determines how the remaining 299 seats are distributed. It actually determines the distribution of all of the 598 seats between parties. Once those seats are assigned to the parties, they all have to fill them with their candidates that won the Erststimme vote of their constituencies. Their remaining seats are then filled with candidates from a ranked list that the parties have to create and publicize before the vote.

Should a party have more representives from constiuencies than they have been seats assigned, additional seats are added proportionally to all parties in the Bundestag, so that all elected representatives can get their seat without greatly altering the proportions between the parties.

Also it's worth mentioning that every candidate that has won the Erststimme vote of their constituency gets a seat in the Bundestag, even if their party did not get the required 5% of votes or if they are an independent without a party. Should a party manage to win 3 seats in this way, it is excepted from the 5%-rule.

[lolbenz]

i am german and usually we learn about it in school and well, its very easy :D

[samighalo]

This is a great system. Why do you keep saying it's complicated

[oduco]

stil dont know what is so complicated about it i think its very simple

[aritakalo]

This "complicated" system is a well known and quite widely used Mixed Member Proportional. The two votes essentially come from trying to balance local presentation and national level politics, while maintaining the principle of proportionality, the amount of power party gets should be proportional to their size of their voter base (indicated by the second vote).

[simonhegermann]

If you think this is complicated maybe you are american

[Doofkopf]

...complicated???
I'm from Germany and literally everyone knows how this System works.
We learn this stuff in 7th grade, so even people who aren't really interested in politics have a pretty good understanding of how the elections work.

[AtzenMiro]

In the UK we can actually see what happens if there is no second vote: the ruling party can get overproportionally more seats then the votes they got indicates thanks to the first vote.

[YoSomePerson]

German here. Good explanation! Question : Did you travel all through Germany from Berlin to Cologne to make a 5min youtube video :D ?

[lorenzalbrecht]

germany has that 5 % thing, because in the weimarer repuplic where many partys with 1% or 2% so, it get out of control because all partys had differnet meannings and opinions .

[awesomemel]

At least our System makes sense, in contrast to the American XD

[MrLikeAsatellite]

I think our system is actually pretty simple. The US voting system however is very hard to understand. Furthermore it seems to be kind of undemocratic, if the popular vote does NOT make the president.

[krokobert]

"The german election system is complicated"
Sorry, but at that point I just had to laugh

[WupperVideo]

Wie viele Deutsche tummeln sich hier noch in den Kommentaren? 🙈

[fritzwalter]

der buundestaag halt. i love it how americans pronounce german words.

[EricGrochowski]

Mistake at around 1:42
The second vote does not determine how to devide up the remaining 299 seats but ALL 598 seats among the parties.

[NachtvogelHH]

Ahem. German speaking here:

Although this is a rather good explanation of the Federal Parliament voting system, there's one major error. The second vote does not determine the proportions between parties inside only a 299-seat-sized partition of the Bundestag but of the total of all seats of the entire Bundestag (whatever this total due to overhang and balance seats may be in the end).

For a long time is was close to that (but still not exactly as described), when Bundestag consisted of 299 constituency seats and 299 party seats and the second vote determined the proportions between parties regarding exactly these 598 seats. Overhang seats came on top of that and didn't enter the proportions. 2008 this was declared invalid by ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court and 2013 electoral law was reformed. Since then if parties win more constituency seats than their second vote results would allow, additional seats are granted to the other parties to restore the proportions – the balance seats.

[RationHans]

Totally complicated! 2 votes... Too complex for americans xD In Germany you can vote your favourite candidate in your district and a "Partei" you like. In the USA you have Trump. Well done

[tim..indeed]

It's a great system because the amount of seats a party gets is proportional to the amount of votes a party gets. In the US the Libertarian and Green party can get a few percent of votes but will never get a seat.