Distribution of seats in the 16th German Bundestag © German Bundestag

The distribution of seats in the German Bundestag is proportional to the numbers of votes cast for the various parties. The Bundestag decided some years ago that the model developed by the English constitutional lawyer Thomas Hare and the German mathematician Horst Niemeyer should be used to calculate the distribution of seats. Under this method, the number of seats to be distributed in the Bundestag is multiplied by the numbers of second votes cast for the different parties. The resulting figures are divided by the total number of second votes cast for all the parties taking part in the distribution. When this is done, each party receives as many seats as whole numbers fall to it. Any seats still to be distributed are allocated in the order of the highest remainders left over. In a further set of calculations, the number of Members directly elected for each party is subtracted from the total number of seats allocated to it in each Land in order to find how many list candidates should receive parliamentary mandates.

1) Henry Nitzsche, Member of the Bundestag, was elected as a direct constituency candidate for the CDU, and resigned from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on 15 December 2006.

2) Gert Winkelmeier, Member of the Bundestag, was elected via the Left Party list, and resigned from the Left Party parliamentary group on 13 February 2006. Jörg Tauss, Member of the Bundestag, was elected via the SPD list, and resigned from the SPD parliamentary group on 20 June 2009.

3) Matthias Wissmann and Johann-Henrich Krummacher were elected to the Bundestag in 2005 after winning constituency seats. Matthias Wissmann left the Bundestag on 1 June 2007; Dr. Peter Jahr left the Bundestag on 14 July 2009; Johann-Henrich Krummacher passed away on 25 February 2008. While a party has overhang mandates, a departing Member representing the party is not replaced.

last update: 15 July 2009