State election of Baden-Württemberg: The simple instructions for the voting slip

As always, candidates and parties are on the ballot, but the state elections in Baden-Württemberg work according to different rules.

Stuttgart - March 14th is the next day of truth for Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann and his challenger Susanne Eisenmann.

They are arguing in the state elections in Baden-Württemberg in 2021 about who is allowed to lead the state government.

However, voters are not allowed to vote directly on the ballot paper about who will be Prime Minister.

How many crosses are allowed on the voting slip for the state elections in Baden-Württemberg?

All eligible voters receive

only one voting slip

and are

only

allowed to

tick exactly one cross on

it.

This is unusual in Germany for elections to state parliaments.

The local direct candidates and the parties are firmly linked to one another on the ballot papers for the state elections in Baden-Württemberg.

There is no separation into first and second voices.

The names of the candidates are therefore always mentioned directly in connection with the party on the ballot paper.

The voters: in comparison to other elections, they vote both in a double pack.

Incidentally, this also applies to postal votes in Baden-Württemberg.

It is very important:

Anyone who ticks an additional cross, writes down other parties and candidates or makes other entries, invalidates the entire voting slip.

Why aren't the same parties on the ballot in all of Baden-Württemberg?

In the constituencies of Baden-Württemberg there are not only different candidates: on the ballot for the state elections in 2021. The

number of parties also varies

.

A party can only run in a constituency if someone is running for it there.

Smaller parties therefore sometimes only run in very few of the 70 constituencies.

By the way,

Wahl-O-Mat BW 2021 can help

you decide on one of the parties here on

Merkur.de

.

How are the seats in the state parliament calculated from the crosses?

At this point you can already guess: Tactical voting as with first and second votes is not possible in this state election.

If you want to vote for a certain party in Baden-Württemberg, you always automatically vote for the local candidate - and vice versa, of course.

First of all, all candidates who have won their constituency will safely enter the state parliament.

At the end of the day, however, the total number of votes received by each party is added up.

All parties that have won at least five percent of the vote should be represented in the state parliament in proportion to their percentage.

That is why

overhang mandates are distributed

- i.e. additional seats - until the right balance of power has been achieved between the parties.

Whoever wants to become Prime Minister: in the end has to be elected by the majority of the state parliament.

(rm)