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Three votes on the ballot paper, 138 fewer MPs in the Bundestag? Union warns of traffic light plan

2022-05-19T03:33:06.035Z


Three votes on the ballot paper, 138 fewer MPs in the Bundestag? Union warns of traffic light plan Created: 05/19/2022, 05:24 By: Florian Naumann The FDP politician Konstantin Kuhle in the Bundestag: One of the three politicians who want to reform the electoral law. © Frederic Kern/www.imago-images.de The Bundestag should shrink again. Three traffic light people present a first proposal – the


Three votes on the ballot paper, 138 fewer MPs in the Bundestag?

Union warns of traffic light plan

Created: 05/19/2022, 05:24

By: Florian Naumann

The FDP politician Konstantin Kuhle in the Bundestag: One of the three politicians who want to reform the electoral law.

© Frederic Kern/www.imago-images.de

The Bundestag should shrink again.

Three traffic light people present a first proposal – the Union is outraged by the idea.

Among other things, it would bring three votes per person.

Berlin – The traffic light coalition wants to achieve what several governments before it have failed to do: effectively cap the size of the Bundestag.

According to three responsible politicians from the SPD, Greens and FDP, there should be fewer than 600 MPs – 598 to be exact.

The intended lever for this: The complete end for the overhang mandate.

According to a report by the

Frankfurter Allgemeine

, this is what the responsible chairmen of the three parliamentary groups say.

Another consequence would be the introduction of a third vote on the ballot paper for the federal election.

Criticism comes from the Union faction.

The coalition is heading towards a devaluation of the constituency idea and fueling disenchantment with politics, warned its parliamentary director Thorsten Frei (CDU) in the newspaper.

In recent reform debates, the Union has repeatedly vetoed a reduction in constituencies.

The common goal is to agree on electoral reforms by consensus.

However, the GroKo from SPD and Union had also ignored the Greens, FDP and Left Party in the last attempt at reform.

MPs from the three parties even submitted an urgent application to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.

Later, the SPD also described the resulting reform as "botched up".

Bundestag/Suffrage: Three traffic light people want three votes for everyone - and no more overhang mandates

A background to the quick criticism from the ranks of the CDU and CSU: The elimination of the overhang mandates in the planned system would mean that not every first vote winner from his constituency can safely move into the Bundestag.

According to the proposal of the deputies Sebastian Hartmann (SPD), Till Steffen (Greens) and Konstantin Kuhle (FDP), in future the number of seats each party is entitled to in a federal state should be calculated on the basis of the second votes - called "list votes" by the representatives.

If it achieves more constituency mandates with the first vote - the chairmen are now talking about a "person's vote" - then the candidates with the worst personal vote result in the country will get nothing.

So far they have been allowed to keep these as overhang mandates, the other parties receive compensatory mandates in return.

However, the corresponding constituency should still be represented in the Bundestag.

Because with a second first vote, the so-called “substitute vote”, the voters can indicate a second preference.

The substitute vote cast for the direct candidate who does not get a chance will then be added to this candidate.

The constituency mandate is then given to the person who receives the most votes in the constituency.

Bundestag: Dispute over the overhang mandate – so far the Union has benefited the most

The Bundestag is to be limited to the statutory size of 598 MPs.

Due to overhang and compensation mandates, he grew to 736 seats in last September's election.

Experts had thought an even larger parliament was possible.

Due to a judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court in 2012, the overhang mandates for the other parties are compensated in proportion to their share of second votes, which led to the enormous enlargement of parliament.

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The parties have been arguing for years about fundamental electoral law reform to avoid further bloating in parliament.

The biggest beneficiaries of the overhang mandates are traditionally Union MPs - who are no longer part of the government for the first time in 16 years.

Bundestag reform: Traffic light people pass the Commission – CDU sees “very bad style”

A commission made up of MPs and experts has been dealing with various approaches to reforming electoral law since the beginning of April - the three traffic light MPs are members of the committee.

Among other things, it is about limiting the size of the Bundestag, but also about questions such as increasing the proportion of women in Parliament and the possible lowering of the voting age to 16. It is “very bad traffic light style to anticipate the deliberations of the Electoral Rights Commission,” complained CDU politician Frei.

However, the traffic light can implement its proposal in the Bundestag with a simple majority, so it does not formally need the consent of the Union.

But it's not that far anyway: It's a "personal proposal" by the three authors, said SPD chairman Sebastian Hartmann on Wednesday.

At the same time, Kuhle emphasized: "We're not getting anywhere with the muddling through of the past few years and the mutual recriminations of all political parties." If the reforms fail again, there is a risk of "loss of reputation".

However, other ways to reach the goal would also be conceivable.

In 2019, the Greens, Left Party and FDP had jointly proposed reducing the number of constituencies to 250 for the last federal election, which would have significantly reduced the likelihood of overhang and compensation mandates.

(

fn/AFP/dpa

)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-05-19

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