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2009 German federal election
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2009 German federal election
A federal election was held in Germany on 27 September 2009 to elect the members of the 17th Bundestag.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) won the election, and the three parties formed a new centre-right government with Angela Merkel as chancellor. While CDU/CSU's share of votes decreased slightly, it was more than compensated by the gains of their "desired coalition partner", the liberal FDP, that won the strongest result in its history.
CDU and CSU's former partner in the "Grand coalition", the Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, conceded defeat after dropping by more than 11 percentage points, receiving its hitherto worst result since the end of the Second World War (only undercut in 2017 and 2025). At 70.8 percent, the voter turnout was the lowest in a German federal election since 1949.
According to Article 38 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, members of the Bundestag shall be elected in general, direct, free, equal, and secret elections; everyone over the age of eighteen is entitled to vote.
In 2008, some modifications to the electoral system were required under an order of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. The court had found a provision in the Federal Election Law by which it was possible for a party to experience a negative vote weight, namely losing seats due to more votes, violated the constitutional guarantee of the electoral system being equal and direct. The court allowed three years for these changes, so the 2009 German federal election was not affected. The changes were due by 30 June 2011 but appropriate legislation was not completed by that deadline. A new electoral law was enacted in late 2011 but was declared unconstitutional once again by the Federal Constitutional Court upon lawsuits from the opposition parties and a group of some 4,000 private citizens.
Four of the five factions in the Bundestag agreed on an electoral reform whereby the number of seats in the Bundestag will be increased as much as necessary to ensure that any overhang seats are compensated through apportioned leveling seats, to ensure full proportionality according to the political party's share of party votes at the national level. The Bundestag approved and enacted the new electoral reform in February 2013.
The Bundestag is elected using mixed-member proportional representation, meaning that each voter has two votes, a first vote for the election of a constituency candidate by first-past-the-post and a second vote for the election of a state list. The Sainte-Laguë/Schepers method is used to convert the votes into seats, in a two-stage process with each stage involving two calculations. First, the number of seats to be allocated to each state is calculated, based on the proportion of the German population living there. Then the seats in each state are allocated to the party lists in that state, based on the proportion of second votes each party received.
In the distribution of seats among state lists, only parties that have obtained at least five percent of the valid second votes cast in the electoral area or have won a seat in at least three constituencies are taken into consideration. The minimum number of seats for each party at federal level is then determined. This is done by calculating, for each party state list, the number of constituency seats it won on the basis of the first votes, as well as the number of seats to which it is entitled on the basis of the second votes. The higher of these two figures is the party's minimum number of seats in that state. Adding together the minimum number of seats to which the party is entitled in all of the states produces a total representing its guaranteed minimum number of seats in the country as a whole.
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2009 German federal election
A federal election was held in Germany on 27 September 2009 to elect the members of the 17th Bundestag.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) won the election, and the three parties formed a new centre-right government with Angela Merkel as chancellor. While CDU/CSU's share of votes decreased slightly, it was more than compensated by the gains of their "desired coalition partner", the liberal FDP, that won the strongest result in its history.
CDU and CSU's former partner in the "Grand coalition", the Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, conceded defeat after dropping by more than 11 percentage points, receiving its hitherto worst result since the end of the Second World War (only undercut in 2017 and 2025). At 70.8 percent, the voter turnout was the lowest in a German federal election since 1949.
According to Article 38 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, members of the Bundestag shall be elected in general, direct, free, equal, and secret elections; everyone over the age of eighteen is entitled to vote.
In 2008, some modifications to the electoral system were required under an order of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. The court had found a provision in the Federal Election Law by which it was possible for a party to experience a negative vote weight, namely losing seats due to more votes, violated the constitutional guarantee of the electoral system being equal and direct. The court allowed three years for these changes, so the 2009 German federal election was not affected. The changes were due by 30 June 2011 but appropriate legislation was not completed by that deadline. A new electoral law was enacted in late 2011 but was declared unconstitutional once again by the Federal Constitutional Court upon lawsuits from the opposition parties and a group of some 4,000 private citizens.
Four of the five factions in the Bundestag agreed on an electoral reform whereby the number of seats in the Bundestag will be increased as much as necessary to ensure that any overhang seats are compensated through apportioned leveling seats, to ensure full proportionality according to the political party's share of party votes at the national level. The Bundestag approved and enacted the new electoral reform in February 2013.
The Bundestag is elected using mixed-member proportional representation, meaning that each voter has two votes, a first vote for the election of a constituency candidate by first-past-the-post and a second vote for the election of a state list. The Sainte-Laguë/Schepers method is used to convert the votes into seats, in a two-stage process with each stage involving two calculations. First, the number of seats to be allocated to each state is calculated, based on the proportion of the German population living there. Then the seats in each state are allocated to the party lists in that state, based on the proportion of second votes each party received.
In the distribution of seats among state lists, only parties that have obtained at least five percent of the valid second votes cast in the electoral area or have won a seat in at least three constituencies are taken into consideration. The minimum number of seats for each party at federal level is then determined. This is done by calculating, for each party state list, the number of constituency seats it won on the basis of the first votes, as well as the number of seats to which it is entitled on the basis of the second votes. The higher of these two figures is the party's minimum number of seats in that state. Adding together the minimum number of seats to which the party is entitled in all of the states produces a total representing its guaranteed minimum number of seats in the country as a whole.
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