How does Germany fill its house of representatives?
A team project for MA279, Fall 2013
Team Members: Mary-Kate Litchfield, Katie Marsh, Chang Liu, Xingtong Lu, Ruoyu Wang
Outline:
- Number of Representatives
- Number of divisions within the country
- How many representatives each deserves
- Determine which rounding method is used to fill the house
Lists of the Number of Representatives and the Inference (Chang Liu)
Introduction and the Data
The number of representatives of German is actually not a constant over time. And since west and east German has been separated during the cold war, the number of representative changes drastically during 1990-1994. To make it clear we use the table below to show the number of representatives over time.
Seat distribution in the German Bundestag (at the beginning of each session)[1]
Bundestag Session Seats CDU/CSU SPD FDP Alliance '90 The Greens1 The Left2 German Party Others Sonstige
1st Bundestag 1949–1953 402 139 131 52 – – 17 633
2nd Bundestag 1953–1957 487 243 151 48 – – 15 304
3rd Bundestag 1957–1961 497 270 169 41 – – 17 –
4th Bundestag 1961–1965 499 242 190 67 – – – –
5th Bundestag 1965–1969 496 245 202 49 – – – –
6th Bundestag 1969–1972 496 242 224 30 – – – –
7th Bundestag 1972–1976 496 225 230 41 – – – –
8th Bundestag 1976–1980 496 243 214 39 – – – –
9th Bundestag 1980–1983 497 226 218 53 – – – –
10th Bundestag 1983–1987 498 244 193 34 27 – – –
11th Bundestag 1987–1990 497 223 186 46 42 – – –
12th Bundestag 1990–1994 662 319 239 79 8 17 – –
13th Bundestag 1994–1998 672 294 252 47 49 30 – –
14th Bundestag 1998–2002 669 245 298 43 47 36 – –
15th Bundestag 2002–2005 603 248 251 47 55 2 – –
16th Bundestag 2005–2009 614 226 222 61 51 54 – –
17th Bundestag 2009–2013 622 239 146 93 68 76 – –
18th Bundestag 2013– 630 311 192 – 63 64 – –
Please note (1):
CDU: Christian Democratic Union
CSU: Christian Social Union of Bavaria
SDP: Social Democratic Party
FDP: Free Democratic Party
(2)The Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria usually are counted as one part since they don't compete with each other and hold the seats in parliament together.
Conclusion and Inference:
From the table above, we can conclude that the number of representatives changes very little except 11th to 12th bundestag since the end of the cold war. And though there are many parties take part in, the dominant parties are always the CDU/CSU and FDP, which just looks like Democrats and Republicans in United States of American. And nowadays, the number of representative is stable at about 600-700.
How does Germany fill its house of representatives?
Brief history of Bundestag
On September 7th 1949, the (West) German Bundestag had its constituent sitting in Bonn in very first time. The German Bundestag has played an important role in the Federal Republic of Germany’s democratic system, which works on constitutional basis of Basic Law. After the reunion of West and East German, the 12th German Bundestag had its first all-German parliament on Dec 2nd 1990. In 1999, the German Bundestag moved from Bonn into the rebuilt Reichstag Building in Berlin. In total, there have been 18 elections since the new (West) German parliament in 1949.
Citing: Deutscher Bundestag.Web. Nov. 4 2013 <http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/artandhistory/history/index.html>.
Election Procedure
Each citizen of Germany, over the age of 18, may vote to fill the Bundestag every four years The Bundestag has a minimum of 598 seats, which are allocated in the process that follows.
Each citizen gets 2 votes:
- First vote: for electing their local representative, who becomes a candidate sent to Parliament.
- Second vote: for creating a party list, which determines the strength of the parties in the Bundestag.
Half of the seats are elected directly from the first vote.. The other half of the seats are distributed according to parties who either win 5% of the second vote or who win at least 3 seats of the first vote.
The Sainte-Lague/Schepers Method is used to convert the votes into seats. Then there are multiple steps to deciding who fills the seats given to each ‘land’. The number of seats to be given to each ‘land’ is determined using the method stated above, which is proportional to the number people living in that ‘land’.
Next, the parties who fill these specified number of seats to each land are determined by the proportion of “second votes”. There is also a minimum number of seats that each party is federally entitled to, which are allocated as follows: Determine the number of seats the party won based on the first vote, then determine the number of seats the party won based on the second vote. The higher of the two numbers is the minimum number of seats that the party should receive.
Balance seats are also created and distributed so that each party receives its minimum number of seats. In each land, each party must get at least as many seats as it won in the “first vote” The balance seats are then added to the minimum number of seats allocated, which gives the total number of seats in the Bundestag.
information from: http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/bundestag/elections/arithmetic/
Example Election
Election example (2009 elections for the German Bundestag) In the 2009 election, approximately 62 million registered voters voted and determined the composition of German Bundestag. In the first vote, the voters decided on their constituency candidate. Particularly, the candidates with the most votes were elected regardless of their party’s performance. In the Bundestag, every region in Germany has a certain number of constituency seats. On the 2009 election, the Sainte-Lague/Schepers Method was used (which is mentioned in the election procedure). The following table is the result of 2009 election: [1]
Citing:
1. Election of Members of the German Bundestag 2009. Web. Nov 30 2013 http://politik.bei-der-wahl-am.de/en/german-elections-for-the-bundestag/
2. (2009 Result table) Manuel Alvarez-Rivera. Elections to the German Bundestag. Web. Nov 30 2013 <http://www.electionresources.org/de/>.
Reference
[1]"Stenographischer Bericht der 1. Sitzung des 16. Deutschen Bundestages am 18. Oktober 2005 = Stenographic report of the 1st session of the 16th Deutscher Bundestag on 2005-10-18" . dip21.bundestag.de. Deutscher Bundestag. 2005-10-18. Retrieved 2008-10-20.
