Electoral system

Every voter has one vote.

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The lists of parties and other political associations are closed lists as the order of candidates has been determined by the parties in an elective process and cannot be modified.

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The provisional result of the European election is determined by the electoral bodies immediately after polling and passed on to the electoral body on the next highest administrative level as rapidly as possible (as a first release).

First, the votes on the ballot papers are counted in the polling stations and results are determined for the polling districts. In that process, the electoral boards establish

• the number of persons entitled to vote,
• the number of voters,
• the number of valid and invalid votes, and
• the number of valid votes cast for each nomination.

As soon as the election result has been established for a polling district, the electoral officer announces it together with the above information and reports it to the district or town returning officer. If a municipality attached to an administrative district is subdivided into several polling districts, the electoral officer reports the election result to the municipal authority which then aggregates the election results of all its polling districts and reports them to the district returning officer.

The district returning officer determines the provisional election result for the administrative district from the first releases of the municipal authorities. The town returning officer determines the provisional election result for the town not attached to an administrative district from the first releases. The district and town returning officers report the provisional election results, including the postal ballot results, to the Land returning officer as quickly as possible.

The Land returning officer instantly communicates incoming district results to the Federal Returning Officer. In addition, each Land returning officer determines the provisional figures for the Land from the first releases of the district and town returning officers and also submits them to the Federal Returning Officer as rapidly as possible.

In accordance with the legal provisions applying, the Federal Returning Officer determines the provisional election result for the entire electoral area from the first releases of the Land returning officers.

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The member of the electoral board responsible for taking the minutes draws up an election record of the poll and the process of determining and establishing the election result. All steps from the counting procedure up to the establishment of the election result are minuted in the election record following a specific pattern (see Annex 25 of the European Electoral Regulations). The record has to be approved and signed by the members of the electoral board. Then each electoral officer has to hand over the record with attachments to the municipal authority or, in towns not attached to an administrative district, to the town returning officer. The municipal authority submits all election records of its electoral boards to the district returning officer by the quickest means.

The district or town returning officer checks the election records of the electoral boards for completeness and due form. Then the district or town returning officer compiles the final result for the district or town from the election records. The results are submitted to the district or town electoral committee, which determines the election result for the district or town and

• the number of persons entitled to vote,
• the number of voters,
• the number of valid and invalid votes,
• the number of valid votes cast for each nomination.

The district or town electoral committee may correct results established by the electoral board, for example by deciding differently as to the validity of individual votes cast. After the results have been established by the district or town electoral committee, the district or town returning officer announces the election result.

Minutes have to be kept also of the district electoral committee’s meeting. They have to be signed by all involved. These minutes are submitted to the Land returning officer and the Federal Returning Officer as rapidly as possible together with a compilation of the election results which follows a specific pattern (Annex 28 of the European Electoral Regulations).

The Land returning officer examines the election records of the district and town electoral committees. Then the final election results for the various administrative districts and towns are compiled and submitted to the Land electoral committee. The Land electoral committee determines the Land result and establishes

• the number of persons entitled to vote,
• the number of voters,
• the number or valid and invalid votes,
• the number of valid votes cast for each nomination.

The Land electoral committee corrects the results established by the electoral boards, district or town electoral committees, if necessary. The documents are submitted to the Federal Returning Officer together with the minutes of the meeting in accordance with Annex 29 of the European Electoral Regulations.

The Federal Returning Officer reviews the election records of the Land electoral committees. On this basis she determines

• the number of valid votes going to the nominations of each party or political association,
• the total number of valid votes cast in the electoral area, and
• the votes cast for the nominations of each party or political association as a percentage of the total number of valid votes cast in the electoral area.

Then the Federal Returning Officer calculates the number of votes obtained by each nomination and distributes the seats among the nominations in accordance with the European Elections Act. She also calculates how the seats won by a combined list of several parties or political associations are distributed among their individual lists.

After the Federal Returning Officer has reported, the Federal Electoral Committee determines the overall result of the Land list election and establishes, for the entire electoral area,

• the number of persons entitled to vote,
• the number of voters,
• the number or valid and invalid votes,
• the number of valid votes going to the nominations of each party or political association,
• which lists
  • are considered in the distribution of seats,
  • are disregarded in the distribution of seats,
• the number of seats going to each nomination to be considered,
• the candidates elected.

The Federal Returning Officer may correct the results established by the Land electoral committees.

Once all electoral committees have established their results, the Land returning officers announce the result for their Land and the Federal Returning Officer announces the result for the entire electoral area.

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The seats are distributed according to the Sainte-Laguë/Schepers calculation procedure.

In this procedure, which is also called divisor method with standard rounding, the number of votes cast for each party is divided by a common divisor. In line with standard practice, the resulting quotients are rounded to obtain numbers of seats, this means that the figure is rounded up or down when the remaining fraction is larger or smaller than 0.5. Fractions which equal 0.5 exactly are rounded up or down so that the total number of seats to be distributed is attained. If it turns out that several allocations are possible, the Federal Returning Officer draws a lot.

Three different calculation methods may be used which produce the same result:

• the highest average method,
• the rank order statistics procedure, and
• the iterative procedure.

When a procedure was introduced for allocating the seats, the legislator decided in favour of the iterative procedure. In 2009 it was used for the first time to elect European Parliament members from the Federal Republic of Germany.

With the iterative method, an approximate allocation is calculated in a first step. This is done, for example, by dividing the total number of votes to be considered by the total number of seats to be distributed, thus determining a provisional divisor for allocation. Any remaining discrepancies are reduced in the following steps by increasing or reducing the divisor until the final allocation has been found where the distribution of seats corresponds with the number of seats to be distributed.

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The number of seats going to a party or other political association is determined by the number of valid votes cast for that party or association. The distribution of seats is a process including all nominations. No restrictive clause has been used since the European election of 2014.

The value chosen for the divisor used to allocate the votes has to meet the following condition: the total number of votes falling to the Land lists (upper level distribution) must equal the number of votes to be distributed. First, the total of the valid votes is divided by the number of seats to be distributed (96). If, as a result of that calculation, more seats fall to the nominations than there are seats to be distributed, the divisor has to be increased until the number of seats calculated is exactly the same as the number of seats to be distributed. If fewer seats go to the nominations than there are seats to be distributed, the divisor has to be lowered accordingly.

In step one of the calculation, every party or political association receives a share of the seats which corresponds to the valid votes it has obtained in all of Germany. Step two of the calculation: if parties or political associations have participated in the election with Land lists, the number of seats they are entitled to as a result of step one is distributed among the Länder in accordance with the number of votes. Both steps of the calculation must be based on the actual number of seats to be distributed.

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