New right to vote: Who wins and who loses in Berlin and Brandenburg?

New right to vote: Who wins and who loses in Berlin and Brandenburg?

With the Bundestag election on February 23, 2025, there are fundamental changes in the right to vote that will have a significant impact on voters in Berlin and Brandenburg. As rbb24 , the parliament is reduced to 630 MPs, which significantly reduces the relevance of the first voice. In the future, the second vote mainly decides on the composition of the Bundestag. In this way, overhang and equalization mandates are abolished, which in the past had caused a inflation of the parliament. This could lead to the fact that individual electoral winners do not move into parliament, which could lead to a precarity for the SPD in Brandenburg, which won all constituencies in the previous election, but did not receive enough second votes to fill all seats.

direct mandates and new party lists

The new "second -tuning coverage" ensures that the direct mandates are only awarded if they are supported by the second vote result. This could mean that in the next election, up to three SPD candidates in Brandenburg, which received most of the first votes, could go away empty-handed, while their party colleagues would not receive a mandate due to the second votes from the party. More on the potential consequences of the election reform Political-Bildung-Brandenburg . There, the importance of the parties' state lists, which are decisive for the allocation of the seats in the Bundestag, is also emphasized. These lists determine which candidates move into parliament, the more second votes a party receives.

The list of parties that will compete will be finalized by the deadline 14th day of January 2025. Parties that were not continuously represented in the Bundestag in the last election must collect support signatures in order to be approved for election. The choice is not only a possibility for representation, but also a race for the votes, since the political balance of power can be significantly influenced here, especially for new or smaller parties.