The German Election

Many voted by mail, the rest are voting today! The polls open at 8 am and close at 6 pm CET. As America is waking up Germans will be getting ready to hear the results of the vote.

I voted this morning in the German national election. It was a different experience from my US vote in October when I mailed in my ballot from overseas. Today, after breakfast I walked two-and-a-half blocks to the primary school in my neighborhood. It is a one level school building spread out over the grounds, with some modular buildings stuck in front, and looks like it could be in California instead of Northern Germany. The entry way to a large yard with a playground has child friendly mosaics in the wall and on the walkway leading into the yard. I could see that I had to choose which of the two precincts I was assigned to by checking the voting papers that I got in the mail. Everyone who is registered in their place of residence, required by law, and is 18 or older gets voting papers. I could have also used those papers to get a mail in ballot, but I chose to go in person. All around my house are signs for most of the mainstream parties, but none for the AfD. I am glad of that. In the mail I have gotten some political fliers for parties, but none from the AfD.

I went into the polling place which is in a big gymnasium divided in half by a rope. One is for one precinct, the other is for mine. On each side there was a table by the entry way with 3 people and a table across the room with 3 people. One can go to either table to get a ballot. I showed my voting papers, did not need to show ID although I had it, and I got a ballot. There were 3 booths with chairs. The room was well enough lit. There was a pen at the ballot place. My ballot was divided into 2 columns. I got to make one X in a circle in each column. The first column has single people’s names next to the party they represent and this is the candidate for my voting district. There are 299 voting districts in Germany. I can only chose a candidate from my district. There is one for some of the parties. They are also next to the party they belong to. The second column, and more important is where one picks the Political party one is supporting and makes a cross in the circle next to it, and this represents the list of people from the party that you endorse for your state to send to the Bundestag (Federal Parliament). It is like 2 different election systems in one. The number of these representatives to the Bundestag will be chosen by how many votes the party gets in your voting state and by looking at how many districts a single district candidate wins.

The people that you vote for on the list of candidates will go to the Bundestag in order in which they are listed, depending on how many votes the party gets in your state. There are a total of 630 seats in the Bundestag. Each state gets a proportional number of candidate seats for their size of state. So, my state gets 6 candidates. Depending on how many people in my state vote for the party I vote for, we might get some or all of our candidates into the Bundestag. All is unlikely though.

When I was done making my two Xs in the circles in each column, I got to drop my ballot in a the ballot box. At this time my voting papers were checked again, and then my name was checked against a list and checked off. Then I put my ballot in the ballot box, said a nice good bye and was on my way back home. I saw several people who were young on the ballot. One was listed as in high school, but would be graduating since she is 19 almost 20. Actually she was born in my daughter’s birth year, who is a university student. I also saw some University students on the ballot for different parties.

Once all the ballots are in then we will know how many seats in the Bundestag each party has. They count the votes nationwide and the percentage that each party gets will determine the percentage of seats that they get in the Bundestag. We are told that the CDU/CSU will probably have the most, and the AfD will come in second. I still hope this is not true, but we will know this evening. For the first column representing individuals in a district it is a winner takes all system. Those votes are counted and you see who has won in a district. So, there are 2 ways to get into the Bundestag, one your party gets at least 5% of the total votes, or two, your party district member wins in at least 3 districts of the 299 in Germany. Then, the party with the highest percentage of candidates can decide who to form a coalition with, and they get to place their chancellor candidate into the chancellorship, unless they were to get 50% of the votes then they don’t need to form a coalition. Usually they need to choose parties to govern together with that hopefully have similar values and that they think they can govern with who help them add up to the 50% required to legally govern.

This is why everyone is worried that the CDU/CSU will join with the AfD, even though they have said they won’t because they are supposedly getting 30% and the AfD 20% of the votes and everyone else getting less. However, even if the AfD gets the highest percentage, they will not find parties to govern with them from the rest of the parties, which are considered “democratic.” The AfD is not. I also do not consider Bundnis Sarah Wagenknecht (BSW) democratic either, because she is anti-immigrant (although she is German-Iranian) and pro-Putin. I think she is slowly being considered less democratic now that she has left the Left and created her own party. Since democratic parties have pledged not to form a coalition with the AfD, who would have to win 51% of the German vote to be in power, it is unlikely that they will be in the governing party this time, but they will have votes from the floor in the Bundestag that will give them power. The not forming a coalition with a fascist is a lesson Germany learned from Hitler’s time, that I hope we are still sticking to.

Before voting I have my ideal party in mind and then in reality I have the one that I voted for. I am not interested in voting for candidates or parties who don’t have a real chance of winning so it is between the 6 main parties since I would never vote for the AfD. So I go for the party that most closely represents my values.

What am I lookin for in a political party? One is they must support democracy. I do not mean just saying that they will, but that they have not said or done things that are undemocratic. I also want them to be strong on the environment. We have to steward it for our children and their children and all future generations. I want them to support immigration and have creative ideas for how to make coming to Germany more welcoming and easy to manage. I want them to support Ukraine and not Putin. I want them to support Jews and Muslims and other religious minorities, and I want them to have an economic policy where they are willing to go over the German budget ceiling in order to fund the government to do things that are important to our economy and our security and can see these situations as emergencies not just hard luck. I want a party that has people with creative solutions not despair and I want someone with a can do attitude to lead. Someone who can stand up for Europe and stand up to Putin and Trump.

Germany has caused a lot of suffering in the last century and has suffered a lot as well. There have been two world wars that it lost. There have been periods of poverty that seem to be forgotten by many, there was the division of the country in two with half aligned with the Soviets in yet another fascist government. I am hoping that this election shows that Germans have not forgotten their past and are looking how to negotiate the Zeitenwende with some risk taking necessary to make timely decisions while staying on the side of freedom and democracy. I hope that we continue to be the ally to other EU countries and to Ukraine. I want Germany to continue to value democracy over the immediacy of letting a dictator with easy solutions run things. Tonight we will find out what percentage of the Bundestag seats each party got, and who will be the party with the next chancellor of Germany. It will be some time before a governing coalition is formed and we can only hope it can rise to the demands of the times which are not about getting Germany through a pandemic, but how to support Ukraine without the Trump administration and the USA and to keep the continent from getting into World War III.