The planned reform of German election law, championed by the coalition partners, now appears to be stalled according to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Johannes Fechner, an SPD politician serving in the lead commission tasked with drafting a joint proposal, told the news portal “T-Online” that the group is unlikely to agree on any electoral reform with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Fechner indicated that the election law commission has concluded its mandate, having already presented various reform options to the coalition committee in March. He emphasized that the SPD desired a system that guarantees representation for all electoral districts in the Bundestag and significantly increases women’s proportional representation through state lists. He added that, in his view, the CDU was apparently unwilling to make compromises concerning parity.
The CDU, however, disagrees with this assessment. Steffen Bilger, the parliamentary director for the CDU group, asserted that abandoning the reform constitutes a clear breach of the coalition agreement. Bilger stressed that there was a clear agreement to reform the electoral law so that every candidate elected by a first vote (Erststimme) is guaranteed a seat in the Bundestag. He argued that the current situation-where, he stated, one million voters do not have a corresponding representative-is detrimental to a just democracy. Furthermore, he noted that the term “parity” is conspicuously absent from the coalition contract.
The coalition agreement, it is recalled, mandates the establishment of an election law commission to evaluate reform proposals in 2023 and submit suggestions in 2025. These proposals must ensure that every candidate elected by a first majority vote can enter the Bundestag and that the size of the Bundestag generally remains at its current level, while also evaluating how equal representation of women and the participation rights of those aged 16 and over can be guaranteed.
The debate surrounding electoral reform itself dates back to a 2011 ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court regarding the previously valid election law. At that time, seats allocated to a party based on its overall proportion of second votes were supplemented by seats won in direct electoral districts. If a party gained more direct mandates than its proportional share allowed, these were counted as overhang seats (Überhangmandate). The Court criticized the system because voting for one party could, at times, result in a disproportionately low number of seats for that same party.
The ruling consequently introduced compensation seats designed to align the distribution of seats in parliament with a party’s proportional vote share. This led to a noticeable expansion of the Bundestag and empowered smaller parties. A smaller reform in 2020 subsequently meant that not all overhang seats needed to be compensated, which particularly benefited the CSU.
The latest reform, which was largely confirmed by the Federal Constitutional Court and associated with the current coalition, stipulated the elimination of both overhang and compensation seats. While this equalizes seat losses across all parties compared to the situation before 2020, the new system presents a distinct disadvantage for the CSU compared to other parties. Critically, this reform has caused some electoral districts to no longer have a direct representative in the Bundestag; 23 of the initial first-vote winners were affected by this arrangement.