The election of the German Bundestag 2025-2-23 has brought about many changes to the 1st chamber, the national parliament. First the voting system had changed to limit the newly elected parliament to 630 seats for a total of about 60 million people entitled to vote. 50 million voted in the election. The national average of participation in the election reached a very high 82.5%, with a range from 73.5% to 88%. Overall, it has been the highest participation rate since reunification. Political parties have to pass a barrier of 5% to be eligible for seats in the Bundestag. This regulation had been installed to avoid too many small parties to enter the Parliament as coalition building could be rather difficult and lengthy.
2 political parties missed this barrier closely, one with 4,3 % and another one with 4,97% of votes in the so-called 2nd vote, which is the vote for proportional representation in parliament after which the seats are allocated. Adding those ballots casts together, this means that for these 2 parties about 4.5 million votes do not get any representation at the national level. Several other smaller parties add more than 1 million votes, which are finally without any national representation. However, the only regionally campaigning conservative party from Bavaria reached 3 million votes (6% of votes) on the national level, which gives them a representation of 44 seats in the Bundestag.
Participation across age groups follows a relatively constant pattern. Older votes 60+ have relatively high voter turnout, whereas the younger age groups do not use the chance to vote as much as other age groups. This remains a challenge for democratic representation. The youngest have the longest time spell to live with the consequences of democratic representation and resulting policies. There are useful debates to lower the current legal age (18) to 16 years of age for voting to soften the effects of aging societies voting. Children, or currently anybody under 18, have no impact on political representation. An overweighting of families with children might fix such deficits. If the number of children drops further, we might eventually be willing to give our future a stronger voice in political elections. (Image: empty Berlin playground 2025)
Research Teaching Consulting