With around 84.5 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous country in western Europe. A German Federal election, where representatives are elected to the Bundestag (Germany’s national parliament), is therefore always an important event. From our perspective, it is particularly interesting to explore the outcomes of a major election that is conducted under a system of Proportional Representation (PR).

How the voting system works in Germany 

Since the Federal election of 1953, the second post-World War II election held in the Federal Republic of Germany, a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system has been used for German Federal elections. In the UK, we describe this electoral system as the Additional Member System (AMS).

In this system, a number of representatives are elected in First Past The Post (FPTP) constituency seats and a number of ‘additional’ representatives are elected via a Party List system. The election of ‘additional’ representatives seeks to make the overall result of the election more proportional than it would have been if representatives were elected only via First Past the Post.

Different MMP or AMS systems seek to achieve different levels of proportionality. Germany’s MMP system is at the very proportional end of that scale, with the overriding aim being for a party’s seat share in the Bundestag to closely match the party’s vote share in the Party List section of the election.

One of the ways this is achieved is by having more Bundestag seats reserved for members elected via the Party List section (331 seats) than via the FPTP constituency section (299 seats). In contrast, the AMS system used for Scottish Parliament elections has more FPTP constituency seats (73) than Party List seats (56), meaning that Scottish Parliamentary election outcomes are often slightly less proportional than those for German Federal elections.

MMP systems allow us the interesting opportunity to explore how an election result might have looked if it had been conducted using FPTP, without the ‘additional’ seats that make the overall result more proportional.

What happened this time? 

In this regard, the results from the 2025 German Federal election are striking. The CDU/CSU alliance came top in 190 of the Bundestag’s 299 FPTP constituency seats*. This represents nearly two-thirds (63.5%) of the FPTP constituency seats, on the basis of just under one-third (32.1%) of votes across the FPTP constituency seats.

This outcome is remarkably similar to the 2024 UK general election, held under FPTP, where Labour won 63.2% of seats, on the basis of 33.7% of votes, which was the most disproportional election in the history of the UK.

The voting system does a far better job of reflecting the wishes of voters 

The difference between the German and UK electoral systems are the ‘additional’ seats that that mean the outcome of the 2025 German Federal election much more closely reflects how people voted than the 2024 UK general election did. Therefore, despite winning two-thirds of the FPTP constituency seats, the CDU/CSU won only one-third (33.0%) of Bundestag seats overall because its overperformance in the FPTP constituency section meant it was entitled to very few of the ‘additional’ seats.

Like many proportional systems, Germany’s includes an electoral threshold that parties need to achieve in order to enter the Bundestag. In this case a party needs to receive a minimum 5% of Party List votes across the country, or win a minimum of 3 FPTP constituencies, in order to enter the Bundestag and receive representation in line with their nationwide Party List vote.

Inevitably, some parties do not meet this threshold, which means that those parties who do reach the threshold receive slightly higher seat shares than their national Party List vote share. Despite this, there can be no denying that Germany’s MMP system has done a far better job of reflecting the wishes of German voters than the FPTP system did at last year’s UK general election. This is reflected in the below Party List vote shares and seat shares in the Bundestag:

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This article was updated in November 2025.

Proportional representation is the most popular form of democracy for countries in the world today. Proportional Representation isn’t one electoral system though, it’s the simple idea that the strength of each faction in parliament should closely match their popularity in the country. For many people, that is what living in a democracy means.

Each country will have a slightly different way to reach this goal, but there are a few broad families of electoral systems.

There are over 130 countries which use either a Proportional Representation or a mixed system to elect their lower chamber across the world. Less than 55 use the First Past The Post system, a minority of countries globally, one of which is the United Kingdom.

Those who still use First Past the Post tend to have it as a result of being former British colonies.

This table is based on the Parline Database, and original research. We removed countries classified as ‘authoritarian’ by the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index 2024. Please note that every country uses a slightly different implementation of their electoral system. Some countries could be argued to fit into multiple categories. With that in mind, the exact number for each system is contested.

Of the top 10 ranked countries on the Human Freedom Index 2024, an index which measures 86 indicators of personal and economic freedom, 9 are countries which use a form of PR for their elections (Switzerland, New Zealand, Denmark, Luxembourg, Ireland, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Estonia).

Similarly, 9 of the top 10 ranked countries classed as ‘full democracies’ on the Democracy Index 2023, which is based on five categories “electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties”, use PR (Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands). The United Kingdom sits halfway down the rankings of full democracies, coming 18th out of 23 countries classed as full democracies.

What are the main proportional representation systems?

Party List Proportional Representation is the most popular

Party List proportional representation is the most widely used form of PR globally.

In Party List systems, constituencies are bigger than under First Past the Post and voters elect a group of MPs. These constituencies could be a town, county, or whole country.

Open and closed list systems

Party List systems differ in the extent to which citizens can choose which individuals get elected.

In a ‘closed’ list system, an ordered list of candidates is published by each party. Voters mark their support for the party on the ballot, rather than an individual candidate. Once the election results have been announced, the party fills the seats they have won from their list of candidates in that constituency.

Alternatively, in ‘open’ list systems, each party draws up a list of candidates and voters can vote for an individual candidate from this list (in some countries – voters can choose to simply vote for a party rather than choosing a specific candidate).

Single Transferable Vote gives power to voters

Ireland and Malta use the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a form of proportional representation invented in Britain and the preferred system of the Electoral Reform Society.

STV gives voters maximum choice on who to vote for. Voters put numbers by the candidates on their ballot paper with the number 1 as their favourite, they can rank all candidates or just vote for their favourite candidate.

To get elected, a candidate needs to reach a set number of votes based on the number of seats available in the constituency and the number of votes cast.

If your favourite candidate has more votes than they need to gain a seat or has no chance of winning then your vote is transferred to your next choice, rather than making no difference on the outcome as it would with First Past the Post.

Under STV, voters can choose between candidates from the same or different parties, which incentivises parties to stand candidates who reflect the diversity of the party and the constituency. Independent candidates are no longer seen as a ‘wasted’ vote, ensuring every voter can have their vote heard and counted.

Mixed Member Proportional Representation keeps a single local MP

Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) is also known as the Additional Member System (AMS) in the UK. MMP is a mix of Westminster’s First Past the Post system and Party List PR – the goal is to provide a proportional parliament but also keep a single local MP. Both the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd use this system.

Voters have two ballot papers. On the first is a list of candidates who want to be the local MP. Voters choose one candidate from this list. The candidate with the most votes wins and gets a seat, even if most people didn’t vote for them.

On the second ballot paper is a list of parties, each party will have published a list of candidates prior to the election. Each voter can choose one party on the ballot paper, a vote for a party is a vote to support any candidate they have selected to be on their list.

From this second ballot paper, seats are allocated in proportion to the votes a party received, taking into account how many ‘first vote’ seats they obtained, then ‘topping-up’ the seats in the legislature to make the legislature closely match the votes cast on the second ballot.

Parallel Voting is only semi-proportional

Parallel Voting is often conflated with AMS/MMP as it is (most commonly) a mix of FPTP and PR. However, while in AMS/MMP the Party List element acts as a ‘top-up’ to cancel out the disproportionate results of the First Past the Post seats, in Parallel Voting the two ballot papers (FPTP and PR) are separate. The PR seats are simply added to the First Past the Post seats.

Conclusion

Each electoral system balances the competing requirements of how proportional they are (whether seats in parliament reflect votes cast), the connection between MPs and their communities and the extent to which voters can choose between different candidates.

While no system is perfect, the Electoral Reform Society has long championed the Single Transferable Vote as the best balance of these requirements for the UK.

Add your name to our call for a proportional parliament

[Note: Germany updated their voting system for the 2025 election, and introduced new rules. You can find out about that in our article on the election]

This Sunday (26th March), Germany goes to the polls to elect its national parliament – the Bundestag. With Angela Merkel stepping down as Chancellor after 16 years, this election will cause only the fifth change in Germany’s head of government in the last 50 years. Ahead of this vote, I thought we’d take a look at the electoral and party systems of Europe’s largest democracy.

The voting system

The Bundestag is elected using a Mixed-Member Proportional system, known in Germany as ‘Personalised Proportional Representation’. It currently has a base of 598 members, with 299 elected in single-member constituencies by First Past the Post and a minimum of 299 elected using Party List PR in each state. To be eligible to win list seats, a party must win more than 5% of the vote nationally or win three single-member constituencies. 299 is only the minimum number of list seats as there are almost always more than this due to both ‘overhang’ and ‘levelling’ seats.

Overhang seats

Overhang seats occur when a party wins more FPTP seats than it would be proportionately entitled to. Under the Scottish and Welsh Additional Member Systems, doing this denies other parties of the ability to win their full, fair allocation of seats. But in Germany, additional list seats are added to ensure that each party has a near-identical vote:seat ratio at the national level. These levelling seats create pure proportional representation for parties that qualify for list seats and neutralise any advantage a party builds up on the FPTP seats. They do, however, lead to a significant inflation in the size of the Bundestag – the 2017 election saw the creation of 111 additional seats, giving Germany a total of 709 MPs.

Parties and Government

The moderately multi-party system of modern Germany is led by the two major, ‘Chancellor’ parties – the centre-right CDU (including their Bavarian sister party, the CSU) and the centre-left SPD. The CDU has historically been the more dominant party, being the largest parliamentary faction after all but three elections and providing five of the Federal Republic’s eight Chancellors – including Adenauer, Kohl and Merkel, who all served in office for more than 14 years. The SPD, who held the Chancellery in two periods from 1969-82 and 1998-05, have spent the last eight years as the junior partner to the CDU as part of a so-called ‘grand coalition’.

During the 1960s and 70s, Germany had a pure two-and-a-half party system with the half being the liberal FDP. Then the ‘pivot’ party in the middle, the FDP is today associated more with right-wing, economic liberalism and is seen as closer to the CDU. In 1983, the Greens became the first other party to cross the 5% national threshold since it was introduced in 1957. They have since become a key presence in German politics and have held the Minister-President (state-level head of government) position in Baden-Württemberg since 2011.

After reunification in 1990, these four parties were joined by the PDS – the successor to the East German Communist Party. It merged with a left-wing breakaway from the SPD in 2007 to form Die Linke (The Left) and its support remains heaviest in the former East Germany. The most recent addition to the Bundestag is the right-wing populist, if not far-right, AfD, who won their first seats in 2017. Like Die Linke, their support is stronger in the East.

The German party system runs deep, with nearly all seats in Germany’s 16 state parliaments being taken by these six parties. Nonetheless, this election could represent a big shake-up of that system, with polls pointing to the CDU’s worst-ever result and the Greens expecting the best third-party performance ever. The SPD, who have long been regarded as in a terminal decline, have experienced a surge in support in the last month, with their candidate, Olaf Scholz, now favourite to be the next Chancellor. The AfD and Die Linke are both set for moderate losses.

Germany has historically opted for two-party coalitions at the national level – with the last 50 years seeing SPD-FDP, CDU-FDP and SPD-Green governments, as well as the CDU-SPD grand coalition that has been in power for most of Merkel’s term as Chancellor. It isn’t entirely clear which coalition will be formed this time, but polls suggest it will likely have to involve three parties – a situation that has become increasingly common at the state level.

There, pretty much every combination of CDU, SPD, FDP and Green has been tried, with many given nicknames based on the colours of the parties. A ‘traffic light’ coalition (red-yellow-green) comprises the SPD, FDP and Greens, a ‘Jamaica’ coalition (black-yellow-green) is the CDU, FDP and Greens and a ‘Kenya’ coalition (black-red-green) involves the CDU, SPD and Greens. There are also some ‘Red-Red-Green’ state coalitions involving Die Linke, but there is still some apprehension about inviting them into the national government. The AfD, who have been subject to a ‘cordon sanitaire’, are likely to remain excluded from any government at any level for the foreseeable future.

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Of the 43 countries most often considered to be within Europe, 40 use some form of proportional representation to elect their MPs.

The UK stands almost alone in Europe in using a ‘one-person-takes-all’ disproportionate voting system. If we exclude the authoritarian state of Belarus – “Europe’s only remaining outpost of tyranny” – France is the only other European country to use a ‘one-person-takes-all’ system (the Two-Round System).

Proportional voting systems used for lower house national elections in Europe

Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union, Parline Database, https://data.ipu.org/

What type of proportional system do European countries use?

Party List PR

Party List proportional representation is the most widely used form of PR in Europe – 28 countries use it to elect their MPs.

In Party List systems, constituencies are bigger than under First Past the Post and voters elect a group of MPs, rather than a single person. In this system, voters get MPs roughly in proportion to how many people voted for each party.

Party List systems differ in the extent to which citizens can choose which individuals get elected. In ‘closed’ list systems, parties decide who their candidates are and voters can only mark their support for a party (some point out that first past the post is a closed party list of one) Parties decide which candidates fill the seats they have won in the election.

In ‘open’ list systems, each party presents a list of candidates, and citizens can choose which candidate to vote for (or – in some systems – they can choose to vote just for the party if they want). A vote for a candidate is counted as a vote for that candidate’s party.

Semi-open list systems are a mix of the above: voters have more choice in who they can vote for, but – generally – parties can decide the order in which candidates are elected.

Single Transferable Vote

Ireland and Malta use the Single Transferable Vote (STV) to elect their representatives.

As with Party Lists, voters elect a small group of representatives in bigger areas, like a small city or county, as opposed to a single MP in small constituencies as we do in Westminster.

STV gives voters maximum choice on who to vote for. Each elector has one vote. Voters number candidates in order of preference, with a number 1 for their favourite – they can rank all candidates or just vote for their preferred candidate.

To get elected, a candidate needs to reach a set amount of votes. This quota based on the number of seats to be filled and the number of votes cast (read our explanation to find out more about how votes are counted).

If your favourite candidate already has enough votes to win or stands no chance of winning, your vote is transferred to your next choice based on how you ranked candidates.

Under STV, voters can choose between candidates from the same or different parties, which incentivises parties to stand candidates who reflect the diversity of society. Electors can also vote for independent candidates, without worrying about ‘wasting’ their vote.

Mixed Member Proportional Representation

Germany elects their representatives with Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP). Which is similar to the Additional Member System (AMS) in the UK.

MMP is a mix of Westminster’s First Past the Post system and Party List PR – the goal is to provide a proportional parliament but also keep a single local MP.

Voters have two ballot papers. On the first is a list of candidates who want to be the local MP. Like a Westminster election, the voter marks their preferred candidate with a cross and the candidate with the most votes wins and gets a seat, even if most people didn’t vote for them.

On the second ballot paper is a list of parties who want seats in parliament. Each party publishes a list of candidates for these elections, a vote for a party is a vote to make more of their list of candidates into MPs. Seats are allocated in proportion to the votes a party received in the election, taking into account how many ‘first vote’ seats they obtained.

Other systems

The remaining countries (Andorra, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Monaco, San Marino and Ukraine) combine a number of voting systems – mainly First Past the Post and List PR. These tend to be less proportional for a number of reasons.

In Italy, for example, the distribution of the List PR seats does not take into account seats won under the First Past The Post section. While in Greece, the party with the most votes receives a bonus of up to 50 seats, in addition to those they are entitled to on a proportional basis. This makes it likely that a party that receives 40% of votes would achieve an overall majority of seats in the Hellenic Parliament.

Conclusion

The UK is unique among European countries in terms of its electoral system – and not in a good way. It’s the only democracy that uses the outdated, one-person-takes-all First Past the Post system. Westminster is even unique within the UK, as the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, as well as the Northern Ireland and London Assemblies all use forms of proportional representation.

While the List PR systems commonly used in Europe can create parliaments that closely reflect the opinions of their countries, there is often a weaker constituency link.

This is why the ERS favours the Single Transferable Vote: this system enhances voter choice and guarantees a strong link between MPs and voters, while also distributing seats in parliament in a way that is fair and reflects how people voted. Rather than throwing votes on the electoral scrapheap as ‘wasted’, STV helps ensure every vote counts and people’s voices are heard.

It’s time that we caught up with the rest of the world and changed the way we elect our parliament so it finally reflects public opinion.

Sign our petition for a fair voting system in the UK

[Note: Germany updated their voting system for the 2025 election, and introduced new rules. You can find out about that in our article on the election]

Elections to Germany’s Bundestag – Germany’s House of Commons – are held under Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP).

This electoral system seeks to combine features of Westminster style first past the post voting – in particular each constituency having one MP – and proportional representation – with parties’ seats in parliament determined fairly in proportion to how people voted.

In the UK, this system is called the Additional Member System (AMS) and is used to elect the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, and the London Assembly.

How does Germany’s electoral system work?

Mixed Member Proportional Representation (or AMS in the UK) is a mix of Westminster’s First Past the Post electoral system and Party Lists. Members of the Bundestag are elected every four years by all German citizens over the age of 18.

German citizens have two votes:

The first vote is for the voter’s local MP (see column on the left in the ballot paper below), and is elected through First Past the Post, as in the UK. This system tends to return few, large parties to the Bundestag and ensures – at least in theory – that there is a tight and direct link between voters and MPs.

The second vote is for a party, not a single candidate (column on the right in the ballot paper below). This means that, as well as the winning candidate for local MP, each German state sends a team of MPs to the Bundestag, based on how much of the vote share they won. This vote is generally considered to be the most important as it determines the percentage of seats a party will get in the Bundestag and thus its relative strength. Each party publishes an ordered list of candidates in advance to fill these positions.

How do votes translate into seats?

The first vote determines the election of 299 members of the Bundestag. As in the UK, candidates only need to obtain more votes in their district than anyone else in order to win (even if the majority did not vote for them), while votes for losing candidates are effectively wasted and do not count towards the election of any candidate.

The second vote decides the allocation of the remaining 299 seats, which are filled in proportion to the share of parties’ votes in the election. The amount of local MPs won by the parties using the first vote is also taken into account. Unlike First Past the Post, no votes are lost in the list system as parties gain seats in relation to their share of the vote.

If a party wins five local constituencies, but its fair share of MPs based on the second vote is eight MPs, the top three candidates on its list are elected.

To prevent party fragmentation and small splinter parties from gaining representation, parties must obtain at least five percent of the vote (or three directly elected local MPs) in order to enter parliament.

What are ‘overhang’ seats?

Being able to vote for a constituency MP and a party list means that voters can split their first and second votes among parties. For instance, you may want one party to be in power, but think your local candidate from that party is terrible. While this can increase voter choice, vote splitting can also distort proportionality.

In fact, sometimes the number of seats parties obtain through first votes can exceed the share of seats they should have received based on second votes, which – as mentioned above – set the percentage of seats a party should have in the Bundestag. Candidates who win a constituency seat are guaranteed a seat in parliament, so parties get to keep these ‘overhang’ seats.

Following a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, reforms were implemented in 2013 to make up for this distortion. Other parties are now given ‘balance’ or ‘levelling’ seats to ensure representation in the Bundestag is in line with second votes.

It is because of overhang and balance seats that the 2017 federal election returned 709 members to the Bundestag – 111 more than the constitutional minimum of 598 MPs.

Concluding remarks

Germany’s Mixed Member Proportional system is an improvement on our Westminster-style electoral system, as it incorporates proportionality and fairness through the party list system, ensuring that parliament reflects the country’s political views, while maintaining the personalised, local link typical of First Past the Post.

But MMP is a compromise solution that still retains some of the worst features of Westminster’s electoral system, such as wasted votes. Though an improvement on ‘pure’ First Past the Post, the party list system means that parties have a lot of control over who gets elected. What makes matters worse, the system incentivises vote splitting, which leads to disproportionalities in election outcomes.

Only the Single Transferable Vote – the ERS’s preferred system – can ensure that parliament reflects the diversity of British political views and that MPs have a strong local link with their voters. What’s more, voters have maximum choice over whom to vote for – with ranked choices removing the incentive for vote splitting.