A Voté

"Has voted" is the distinctive call of the polling station officer in France when votes find their way into the ballot box. Not so in my country: the officer just nodded when I had slipped my ballot into the box yesterday as one of the 60 million eligible persons to vote for Germany's 20th Bundestag.

Even Google honored the German federal election.

Germany has a mixed electoral system, and voters have two votes. 299 deputies are directly elected in their electoral districts with a "first" vote. This is the same as in the States or the UK. However, Winston Churchill already mused, "It isn't one hundred percent democratic, but it works." Right he was, for all votes for the smaller parties fallen unter den Tisch (are lost).

To remedy this "undemocratic "situation, Germany's electoral law stipulates that another 299 deputies are added to the Bundestag according to the percentage of "second" votes a party has gained.

Darker means a higher percentage of votes (©Der Spiegel)

Here are Germany's 299 electoral districts. By now, you know that for the two major parties, black stands for the Christian Democrats, and red for the Social Democrats. Germany's south and west voted black, while the north and the Ruhr district are traditionally red. Here and there, the direct mandate fell to the Greens, so in electoral district 281 Freiburg (what else?). Those blue constituencies in Saxonia and Thuringia are unpleasant, where the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland got the majority of the votes cast and the direct candidate elected.

With Christian and Social Democrats being the significant parties, it frequently happens that their number of direct mandates won in a particular state is greater than the percentages of their votes. These seats are called overhang mandates and are compensated by additional leveling seats, thus adjusting the number of deputies according to the portions of the "second" votes cast for their parties.

These two mechanisms try to make the election result nearly one hundred percent democratic but have the unpleasant side effect of swelling the Bundestag. The number of deputies increased from nominally 598 deputies to 709 in 2017 and now to 735 or from XL to XXL. All election law reforms to decrease the number of seats have failed so far. Note: No deputy will vote for his/her own suppression.

Percentages of "second" votes
Gains and losses are compared to the 2017 election results.
(©Der Spiegel)

Here are the final provisionally results of 2021, showing winners and losers.

Angela's reaction to her party's losses (©AP)

The big losers are the Christian Democrats, i.e., Angela Merkel's party, but the extreme right and left parties shrunk too. Germany moved to the center. Only a tripartite alliance can form a stable government. Will we get a center-right Jamaica or a center-left traffic light coalition? Let us hope we have a new government soon; otherwise, acting Chancellor Angela will give the traditional New Year's address on national television.

(©ntv)

On the evening of the election, Chancellor Angela Merkel at a party rally with the wannabe chancellor Armin Laschet (CDU). After 16 years at the helm, the chancellor looks tired. Did she support him enough?

*