German Election System - Bundestag 2025 - New Voting System Explained [dark version]

Germany’s Bundestag election hinges on a mixed system designed to match party strength proportionally while still letting voters directly choose district winners. Each voter casts two ballots: the second vote determines how many seats each party gets overall, while the first vote selects who wins those seats in local electoral districts. The result is a parliament meant to reflect party vote shares without abandoning the idea of direct representation.

The Bundestag is filled with 6030 members, but the core seat target is 630 seats. Party representation is driven primarily by the second vote, which is cast for a party list. Because Germany has many parties, only those that clear eligibility rules earn seats. In practice, the second vote totals across Germany—often described as tens of millions of valid votes—are converted into seat counts using proportional allocation rules, with rounding handled by the Webster method (also called the Sainte-Laguë method). That proportional step fixes each party’s overall strength before the system assigns individual people.

The first vote works differently and operates at a lower geographic level. Germany is split into 16 states, and for the Bundestag election those states are further divided into 299 electoral districts. Each district has its own ballot for the first vote, where candidates compete directly; the candidate with the most first votes in a district wins that district. These district winners then feed into the party’s seat allocation, but the first vote cannot change the party’s total number of seats set by the second vote.

To decide which parties are “important” enough to enter the Bundestag, Germany applies an electoral threshold: parties that fall below 5% of the second votes are excluded unless they win at least three districts. National minority parties are exempt from this hurdle, with only one such party currently relevant in Germany. After the threshold filters parties, seat totals are computed proportionally at the national level and then refined at the state level.

Once each party’s seat count is known for each state, seats are filled using the party lists submitted in that state. The list is ordered, and district winners belonging to the party get priority placement. The system then proceeds down the list to allocate remaining seats, using performance among district winners as a tie-breaker for who rises highest. Three outcomes can emerge: if district winners and list candidates fit neatly, the party’s seats are fully occupied; if too many district winners occur relative to the party’s proportional seat entitlement, some lower-ranked district winners may miss out; and in rare cases, if a state party list is too short, some seats can remain empty, reducing the total below 630.

Finally, the system can exceed 630 seats if a party’s vote share implies it should receive more than half the seats—an exceptional adjustment meant to preserve proportionality. Under typical conditions, with sufficiently long state lists and no overwhelming dominance, the Bundestag lands at the standard 630-seat size for the 2025 election.