It is commonly said that the New Zealand MMP system was modelled on the German PPR (personalized proportional representation). There may be lessons for New Zealand here. The language difference makes it more difficult to fully understand the diferences.
Here I will endeavour to explain the German system using terms familiar to those who know the New Zealand system.
My sources of information were:
- A youtube video by Explainity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnvPoRethYI
- A wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany
- An internet page from a news organisation https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-election-system-explained-a-923243.html
The youtube video is easy to follow, but light on detail. The wikipedia page seems to use complex language, so is more difficult to follow, and uses many unfamilar terms. The Spiegel page is easier to understand but with less detail. And it is not clear just how accurate is the information provided in any of these. So this post should be read on the understanding that I have limited confidence in the details.
To improve clarity, I will refer to :
- An assembly ( for NZ: parliament, Germany: Bundestag)
- A mandate (for NZ: a (voting) seat in parliament, or MP, Germany: a voting seat in Bundestag)
- Mandates can be district mandates or list mandates.
- A district (for NZ: electorate, and <electorate MP>, Germany: district, elects a <direct mandate>, UK: constituency)
NZ and Germany both offer two votes, one for a district mandate, one for a list mandate. (German: direct mandate, <second vote>). NZ has 120 mandate assembly with 72 districts (72/120 = 60%), Germany a 598 mandate Bundestag with 299 districts (299/598 = 50%). Both systems allow overhangs to arise (a party wins more direct mandates than its party votes justify). This has happened a few times in NZ, with up to 2 additional overhang mandates. Overhangs seem more common in Germany. Germany has a complex system of <levelling mandates> to rebalance the assembly.
The German system has rules to deal with the numerous overhangs that appear there. New Zealand has had few overhangs, and so few special rules to govern them. New Zealand seems exposed to the misuse of overhangs to distort the proportionality of results
Germany has a provision that, where an independent is elected to a direct mandate, that party votes from the independent s voters are disregarded. This is to avoid those voters having double value in the election.
Both countries suffer from the problem that many voters do not understand the importance of the party vote compared with the district vote.
Germany has regional party lists, and a 5% national threshold. It is not clear how list candidates are allocated to list mandates. From which (regional) list is each mandate recipient chosen? Germany has constituent states. Regional lists seem to be lists for each state, but I am not certain
I have identified perverse effects of the 5% threshold in New Zealand, and have suggested a second choice of party vote to avoid them. I have not seen any reference to similar issues in the German system.
This page was last updated 23/10/21. Beware this post may not be accurate!
In the meantime, a two-choice NZ voting paper may look like this:
Two-choice party voting 