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>What's the point of this convoluted system? It allows voters to split their vote between parties. They can vote for a local candidate from one party and cast t
by eclipsetheworld 9y ago
>What's the point of this convoluted system? It allows voters to split their vote between parties. They can vote for a local candidate from one party and cast their second vote for a different party.
That's not really the point of the second vote. If we would only have the first vote we might have 599 representatives that only were able to get 20% of the votes in their district (the remaining 80% being spread across other candidates with a vote share of <20%). With the second vote we ensure that at least half of the seats are distributed proportionally across the parties and smaller parties have a chance to get into the Bundestag.
- wolfi1 9y agoGermans also tend to use the split vote to vote for a coalition
- CrystalGamma 9y agoI don't know why you say 'at least half', but the parties that got less than proportional number of seats (usually everyone except the CDU and sometimes SPD) gets Ausgleichsmandate ([leveling seats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_seat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_seat)) so that the parliament as a whole is representative proportionately to the second vote (excluding parties with less than 5% of votes).