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How to Understand Germany’s Complicated Election Process
A walkthrough of how to get elected to Germany’s Parliament (and become the Chancellor)
The 2021 German election is coming up in a couple months! And while there are good videos out there explaining the gist of the German election, I couldn’t find any good resource, in English, explaining the finer details of Germany’s complex electoral process. So that’s what I want to give you today.
If you’re non-German, why should you care about the German election? For one, because Germany is one of the biggest economies in Europe. Also, Angela Merkel, the Chancellor for the past 16 years, will not be a candidate for Chancellor again. An entire generation of Germans grew up only knowing Merkel as Chancellor, and soon a new face will be in charge of Germany. Finally, Germany’s electoral process is just cool. It mixes direct voting (what we have in the States) and proportional voting to try and get the advantages of both systems.
I’m going to walk you through the entire German electoral process, from start to finish, including recent changes made for the upcoming 2021 election. But I’m going to walk you through it by explaining how you, beautiful reader, can become the next Chancellor of Germany.
